The effect of female secondary education on fertility and the timing of birth: regression discontinuity evidence from Ghana

The objective of this paper is to investigate the causal effect of education on fertility. The study adopts an education reform in 1987 that shortened the years of completing secondary school education in Ghana as a natural experiment. The data used for the analysis come from 10% of the 2021 Ghana Population and Housing Census. Women exposed to the reform experienced an increase in secondary school enrolment, which resulted in an overall reduction in fertility. The results obtained in this study indicate that the rise in secondary school education due to the 1987 reform extended the age at first birth. The study found knowledge acquisition, incarceration effect, opportunity cost, and autonomy as possible pathways through which secondary education affects fertility. The study broadens the scope of exploration of existing studies by identifying several mechanisms through which education affects fertility in Ghana. © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Institute for Social and Economic Change 2024.