Marital Fertility and Investment in Children’s Education

This chapter reviews recent literature in economics and economic history on the relationship between parental investments in children’s education and fertility. It surveys studies on fertility patterns in pre-transition economies as well as economies undergoing the process of demographic transition. This chapter focuses on the empirical challenges related to the identification of causal effects. Finally, it provides novel descriptive evidence on the relationship between investments in early childhood education and fertility in 1864 Prussia.