It seems to be conventional wisdom that more education reduces fertility rates. While in previous centuries higher social status was positively correlated with the number of children, this relation shifted to a negative or neutral one in the twentieth century. Most Western countries today struggle to cope with the demographic change.
In a recently published working paper, three economists from Bologna and Linz question the negative correlation between education and fertility. Using changes in the number of mandatory schooling years and data from eight European countries, the authors that
one additional year of schooling increases the number of children by 0.2 – 0.3, whereas the probability to remain childless falls by 7.5 – 13 percentage-points.
Swiss Economist 