The effect of ưomens education on fertility in vietnam

19 Table 4.1: Basic demographic indicators...42 Table 4.2: Distribution of ever-married women by background characteristics %, Vietnam 2002...45 Table 4.3i Level of education ofever-marr

THE EFFECT OF WOMEN’S EDUCATION ON

FERTILITY IN VIETNAM

A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree

of MASTER OF ARTS IN DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS

By

LE HOANG THIEN KIM

Academic Supervisor:

DR NGUYEN HUU DUNG

• I certify that the substance of this thesis has not already been submitted for any_ degree and is not being current submitted for any other degree

I certify that to the best of my knowledge any help received in preparing this

thesis and all sources used, have been acknowledged in this thesis

LE HOANG THIEN KIM

' Firstly, I would like to thank my academic supervisor Dr Nguyen Huu

Dung for his valuable advice, comments and making reference materials available

to me Particularly, thanks to these worthy instructions and kindly help from him, Ican complete the research

I greatly appreciate Mr Truong Thanh Vu for his technique assistance and

valuable comments to the study

Many thanks are respectfully sent to my parents, my husband who are

always encourage and sympathize with me

I would like to thank to all teachers and staffs of the Vietnam — Netherlands

programme at University of Economics HCM

Finally, I am indebted to Measure DHS Office — ICF Macro, especiallyBridgette James — data archive administrator for their assistance and permission toaccess VDHS 2002 data so that I can complete my thesis

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CERTIFICATION i ACKNOWLEDGEMEN

TABLE OF CONTENTS iii

LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES vi

ABBREVIATIONABSTRA

CBAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW 6

2.1Definitions, concepts related to fertility and its measures 62.2Theoretical framework, empirical studies related to determinants of fertility

3.2Data set 27

3.3Model specification 28

3.4Description of variables in the model 29

3.4.1Dependent variable 29

3.4.2 Independent variables 29

3.5Estimation strategy 34

3.5.1 Poisson regression model (PRM) 35

3.5.2 Factor change in E(y|x) 36

3.5.3 Percent change in E(y|x) 37

3.6Chapter summary 37

CHAPTER FOUR: SOCIOECONOMIC CONTEXT AND PROFILES OF WOMEN’S FERTILITY 39

CRAPTER FIYE: FACTORS AFFECT WOMEN’S FERTILITY IN VIETNAM 50

5.1 Empirical model 50

5.2 Estimation results 50

5.3 Summary 55

CHAPTER SIX: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS 56

6.1 Conclusions 56 6.2Recommendations 57

6.3 Further Research 58

REFERENCES

APPENDIX

LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES

Table 2.1: Narratives on the determinants offertility 9

Table 2.2: Intervening variables in Cochrane ’smodel on education and fertility 19

Table 4.1: Basic demographic indicators 42

Table 4.2: Distribution of ever-married women by background characteristics

(%), Vietnam 2002 45

Table 4.3i Level of education ofever-married women, Vietnam 2002 (º ) 46 Table 4.4: Exposure tofamily planning messages on radio and television (° ) 47

Table 4.5: Children ever born by ever-married women aged 15-49, classified by

place ofresidence and education level 48

Table 5.1: Poisson Regression Results — Fertility model 63

Figure 2.1: Key variables and interrelations in a variant of Easterlin ’s supply —

demand model 19

ASFRCBR CEB

Children ever born

General Fertility rate General Statistical Office Poisson regression model Total fertility rate

U.S Agency for International Development

Vietnam Demographic and Health Survey

There are numerous studies indicate that women’s education plays animportant role in number of children ever born This thesis aims to explore theeffect of women’s education on fertility in Vietnam by using the 2002 VietnamDemographic and Health Survey Given the characteristics of observed fertilitypattern, the study applied a count data model, namely, Poisson regression toexamine the effects of women’s education and other determinants on fertility

- The major finding of the study is that women’s education poses a strong

effect to reduce children born in Vietnam The higher the educated women, thelower the expected number of children Similarly, education level of husband orpartners also influence the change in the number of children Other determinants ofimportance in the study show that the higher the age and age of giving first birth,the lower the number of children ever born Public program and knowledge such as

of ovulatory cycle and family planning positively help reducing fertility Womenlive in the rural areas still have a higher number of children than that of women inthe urban areas

Recommendation for public policies and women health governance inVietnam should focus more on the education for low-educated women, improvingrelated knowledge of family planning, especially in the rural areas

CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION

1.1 Problem Statement

Population growth and socioeconomic development are an important issue to

Vietnamese policy makers and development planners Vietnam has clearly madesignificant progress in slowing its rapidly population growth The decline infertility

• has been one of the most important demographic changes in recent years The key

element behind the change in population in Vietnam is considered as a result atfertility level Many policies to reduce population growth received increasingattention of the government and efforts to extend coverage of birth control services

In January 1993, the Communist Party Central Committee for the first timeapproved a resolution on population and family planning The resolution proposedthe objective of “applying small-sized family,” and recommended that “each family

should have one or two children” in order to lower fertility and stabilize population

At the micro level, high population growth leads to a more serious issue ofpoverty Poorer families, especially women bear the burden of a large number of

children with fewer resources per child, further adding to the spiral of poverty Low

levels of income among the poorer families with many children leads to inadequate

food availability, which perpetuates malnutrition, which in turn accelerates high

levels of infant mortality Studies by Ernst and Angst (1983), King (1985) havewidely reviewed the relationship between family size, education and the health ofchildren Among poorer families, beyond a certain family size, additional children

are usually associated with lower average educational attainment and reduced levels

of child health as measured by nutritional status, and mortality

Moreover, research findings from a number of studies on fertility in Vietnamshowed that women’s education has a negative influence on fertility For example,Nguyen (2001) found that women’s education was an important factor helped to

reduce the number of children born in Vietnam In addition, a wide range of

empirical studies showed that raising level of education especially for women hadimportant effect on fertility In their research in Sub-Sahara and Latin America,Jejeebhoy (1995) and Martin (1995) showed that the inverse relationship betweeneducation and fertility can be enhanced only after relatively high levels of educationhave been attained

Although many scholars found that education has a negative effect onfertility, there are still certain limitations in term of estimation Analysts employedstatistical estimation techniques such as linear (Ordinary least squares — OLS) thatare unsuitable for fertility data, which are based on counts (Long, 1997)

This paper examines the relationship between female schooling and fertility

in Vietnam through data from Vietnam Demographic and Health Survey 2002(VDHS 2002), focusing on Vietnamese ever-married women aged from 15-49years old Findings from the study is expected to be used in monitoring theachievements

• of the government’s population policies and programs in the years to come

2

Based on the research objectives, the paper will find out the answer of the

following question: Does women’s schooling affect on fertility in Vietnam?

1.4HypothesesThe main research hypothesis concerning women’s reproductive behavior to

be addressed is that fertility is significantly influenced by women’s educationattainment

1.5Research MethodologyData from Vietnam Demographic and Health Survey 2002 (VDHS2002)' is

• mainly used in this thesis DHS funded by the U.S Agency for International

Development (USAID)-is a worldwide comprehensive survey on demographic,health and fertility indicators The VDHS 2002 was carried out in the framework

of the activities of the Population and Family Health Project of the Committeefor

Population, Family and Children (previously the National Committee for

Population and Family Planning) The VDHS 2002 was conducted by theGeneral Statistical

' Datasets and full explanation are available online from www.measuredhs.com

Office (GSO) on behalf of the Population and Family Health Project of theCommittee of Population, Family and Children Based on data set of VDHS2002, a

model used in the analysis is the Poisson regression that estimates the likelihood

that increasing women’s schooling levels lower fertility in Vietnam

1.6Structure of the thesis

The thesis is organized in six chapters as follows:

Chapter one: Introduction The chapter introduces the research problem,

research objectives, questions, hypothesis, and brief research methodology of thethesis

Chapter two: Literature review This chapter begins with the definitions andconcepts of terms related to fertility Then, theoretical framework and empiricalstudies are reviewed

Chapter three: Research methodology The chapter presents source of data,

sub-data set for the study, explanation of the relevant variables and estimationstrategy

Chapter four: Socioeconomic context and respondent’s profiles It presents

the characteristics of respondent and the background of fertility in Vietnam based

on VDHS2002 data In addition, it also provides descriptive statistics of fertility

Chapter five: Factors affect women’s fertility in Vietnam The results of

regression analysis, interpretation of coefficients and their marginal effects to

fertility are shown

4

Chapter six: Conclusions and recommendations This chapter is to

summarize the findings and conclude with some policy recommendations and

5

CHAPTER TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW

The objective of the study is to examine the effect of women’s education onfertility Therefore, the definitions and concepts related to fertility, theirmeasurements and determinants will be defined After that theoretical frameworkand empirical studies are also reviewed The final section is to summarize of themain point of literature review presented in the chapter

2.1 Definitions, concepts related to fertility and its measures

In the jargon of demographers, there are two terms which are often usedsynonymously; in fact they are different from each other Fertility refers to a

number of children born to women In the Multilingual Demographic Dictionary of the United Nations, fertility means the actual reproductive performance of women,

whereasfecund/J denotes the physical ability to reproduce

Some measures of fertility are cited in Tran (2001: 60), Nguyen (2001:7),VDHS 2002, as follows:

The most common measurement of fertility is the Total Fertility Rate

(TFR) The TFR is the average number of children that would be born to a woman

during her lifetime if she was to bear children at each age according to theprevailing age-specific fertility rates The TFR is obtained by summing the age-specific rates in a particular calendar year across all childbearing ages Therefore,the TFR shows a cross sectional picture of fertility and consists of values from

1 6

many generations of women who are at different childbearing stages in any given

year It is unaffected by the age and sex composition of the population and thusseparate change in actual fertility It supposes that women don’t die during thereproductive age, so it isn’t influenced by mortality

An alternative measure of fertility is the Generational Fertility Rate Thegeneral fertility rate (GFR) which represents the annual number of births per1,000 women in reproductive ages (15-49) Therefore it represents the actual

number of births that a particular cohort of women experienced over their

reproductive lifetime It is affected by the age distribution of women inchildbearing age

The crude birth rate (CBR) which represents the annual number of births

per 1,000 population The CBR was estimated using the birth history data inconjunction with the population data collected in the household schedule It isinfluenced by time and space, depending on many factors such as intensity ofreproductive process, age and sex structure of population Consequently, CBR is

just an indicator that approximately reflects the actual fertility rate

Age-specific fertility rates (ASFR) are calculated by dividing the number of

births to women in a specific age group by the number of woman-years livedduring a given period' Age-specific fertility rates are useful in understandingthe age

Numerators for the age-specific fertility rates were obtained by classifying bwths during the 5-year period

prior to the survey into standard five-year age groups, according to the mother’s age at the time of birth,

and summing Denominators for the rates were the number of person-years lived by all women in each

five-year

age group during the period Since only ever-married women were interviewed in the VDHS, it was

pattern of fertility In an ever-married sample of women such as in the VDHS, thecalculation of all-women fertility rates makes the implicit assumption that no birthsoccurred among women who have never married.

Children ever born (CEB) are the average number of live births that

women has had during her lifetime It is derived from data gathered by censuses orsurveys

Different from the macro measures of fertility mentioned above, which refer

to fertility of population, CEB is a micro measure covering individuals orhousehold As a micro indicator, CEB is often employed in studies of microfertility behavior because of its simplicity for collecting data

2.2Theoretical framework, empirical studies related to determinants of

- necessary to inflate the number of person-years lived by ever-married women by factors representing the

proportion of women who were ever-married in each age group These factors were calculated from the data collected in the household schedule Never-married women were presumed not to have given birth In

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Vietnam, few births occur outside of marriage so that any underestimation of fertility from this source is negligible.

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in various researches on fertility Table 2.1 shows a summary of the different narratives and their specific themes.

•

Classical: Initial Narrative

Biological and Technological

Economic

Explanations for “what people all know about the way things go in this world”

• Social progress and desire for mobility

• Increasing rationalization of behavior

• Modernization process and the demographic transition theory

Proximate determinants and mortality decline

• Fecundability of a woman

• Concept of natural fertility

• Eleven intermediate fertility variables which affect the exposure to the risk of conception

• Exposure factors, deliberate marital control and natural marital control

• Falling infant and child mortalityApplication of microeconomic theories

• Consumer choice demand for children theory

• Demand-supply oriented, combining biological

Innovation, Diffusion, and

Ideational and Cultural

Change

Path-Dependency and

Institutional Change

and sociological elements, and later fertility

regulation and cost

Changing function of the family and the value of children

• Pre-transitional societies favored early marriage and high fertility

• Social conditions determining intergenerational

wealth flow

• Macro-analytic framework that includes the

socio-cultural context, education, occupation and

location

• Non-economic value of children: Social and psychological

Innovation and diffusion of ideas and practices

• Spread of the practice of fertility regulation

• Effects of changes in value systems

Fertility variables and determinants being

influenced by clusters of behavioral rules

• Path-dependent behavioral rules

• Institutional determinants

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Source of basic data: Van de Kaa (1996).

At least six themes have been identified, namely, the classical narrativesrevolving around the initial explanations of demographic changes, the biologicaland technological narratives on the proximate determinants of fertility, theeconomic narratives using microeconomic theories, the social narratives about thefamily and society, the narratives on innovation and diffusion of ideas and practicesand the narratives of path-dependency behavior and institutional changes

The narratives involving economic models on fertility are largelymicroeconomic in approach The two main groups of studies include demand-oriented consumer choice theories and the demand-supply analytical framework.One usual argument in economic models uses the concept of opportunity cost ofchildcare to argue that there is a negative relationship between parental educationand fertility: more educated parents, who are usually working parents, give up someincome-earning opportunities when they devote more time to childcare, so theywould rather have fewer children If such behavior indeed happens, this is the so-called dominant substitution effect It may further be said that the income earnedfrom devoting more time working can be used to provide for better quality childcare

to fewer children An alternative picture is that a positive relationship betweeneducation and fertility is also possible This is the case of a dominant income effect,wherein the more educated and presumably working parents will be earning anincome enough to afford raising more children Which of these scenarios apply to agiven society depends on empirical testing

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2.2.1.1 Household demand model

The theoretical framework for modeling fertility has mainly exposed byBecker He argued that fertility is determined by the interaction between quantityand quality of children, which are separate argument in the utility function Thequality - quantity approach developed by Becker (1960) and Becker and Lewis

(1973) emphasizes that there is likely a substitution effect from quantity to quality

of children with rising family income The key feature in Becker analysis is that the

shadow prices of children with respect to their number (the cost of an additionalchild, holding their quality constant) is greater the higher their quality is Similarly,

the shadow price of children with respect to their quality (the cost of a unit increase

in quality, holding number constant) is greater, the greater the number of children., To illustrate this reasoning, the following simple utility function was specified:

Where n is the number of children, q is their quality and y is the rate of

consumption of all other commodities The budget constraint is

I is the full income, r is the price of nq and try is the price of y The first order

conditions optimization are:

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The important point is that the shadow price of children respect to number(pn) is positively related to q, the level of quality, and the shadow price with respect

to quality (pq) is positively related to n, the number children Quality has a majoreffect on the resource constraint because the cost of an additional child depends on

its quality, while the full cost of higher quality children depends on their number.

The economic interpretation is that an increase in quality is more expensive if there

are more children because the increase has to apply to more units Similarly, an

increase in quantity is more expensive if the children are of higher quality, because

higher quality children cost more A simple modification of constraint in (2) is:

R= npn+qpq+ypy= I+nqr (4)The interaction between the quantity and quality of children in the non-linear budget equation and also in the utility function has several paradoxicalimplications on fertility Explicitly a rise in income could reduce the demand forchildren if higher income greatly increases the education and other training ofchildren The reason is that higher expenditures on training increase the variablecost of children, and could dominate the increased demand due to the incomeeffect (Becker 1960, Willis 1973, Becker and Lewis 1973) An increase in qualityper child implies an increase in costs raising a child, which decreases fertility Formore technical details see Becker and Lewis 1973 The improvement of thewomen human capital level following a high achievement enrollment, increasethe time cost and notably the price of the service offered to bearing and rearingchildren Henceforth, the burden of raising child increase and so the desire tohave an additional child decreases

Beside that, the rise of the mother’s time value encourages her to participate

intensively in the labor market This improvement of the well being empowers her

to actively participate in the decision making within the family in favor of fertilitydecrease, Schultz (1990) The fertility is determined by female wage and familyincome, which are assumed to measure the time cost of raising children and earningpotential Increases in the value of female time by female wage increase tend to

increase the children cost A negative effect on fertility is so expected since the

opportunity cost of having children increases Therefore, fertility decision is taken

in putting in balance the advantage and cost of an additional birth The increase inthe wife’s wage enhances of course the family income but it will also increase theopportunity cost of child bearing and rearing The change of women’s wage andfamily income present two fold an income and a price effect The effect of change isdepending of the magnitude of setting income and substitution effects Beckerargues that the substitution effect would be larger than the income effect, referring

to his assumption that the income elasticity of demand for child quality is largerthen the income elasticity of demand for child quantity Henceforth, higher familyincome would lead fewer children and high quality per child The net effect ofincome on fertility depends on the relative strength of the income effect to thesubstitution effect Also, an asymmetric effect on fertility can be observed with apositive wage’s change resulting by an improvement of the level of the men’shuman capital or by the rise of his market wage rate that increases the family’sincome Improvement of human capital and the education development provides to

14

woman as man a multiple choice on their lifestyle and the autonomy in the maritaltiming decision Education development lets woman to delays her marriage age.Hence educated woman doesn’t use the total fertility period and so has few children

in comparison to the less educated one

Becker’s work belongs to the so-called economic sub-discipline ofhousehold or new home economics, which uses the household production concept.Household economic modeling was used as early as 1957 by Leibenstein and in thelater years has found its way into various aspects of family life Van de Kaa (1996)considers the common features of the new home economics studies to include theuse of a time constraint especially for women, the household stock of human andphysical capital, and the lifecycle conditions influencing labor market training,migration, marriage, children and retirement savings

In addition, a prominent approach, which is associated with the “NewHousehold Economics,” begins from the proposition that members of thehousehold unit seek to maximize income In this formulation, it is assumed thatwomen and men respond to economic incentive structures Accordingly, the theorypredicts that once education is provided as a public good and becomes widespreadfor women and men, an increase in education leads to a decline in fertility, allthings being equal The putative mechanism for this effect is the opportunitycosts associated with caring for children as education increases As women acquireskill sets useful in the marketplace with higher levels of educational attainment,they tend to command a higher wage, increasing the value of their time To thedegree that

28

education raises women’s and men’s earning potential in the labor market, thetheory also implies that education reduces the incentive to attempt to use fertility as

a mechanism to increase family production and income While recognizing the

micro-economic influences of education, complementary approaches suggest that

the link between education and fertility is more complex A theoretically eclecticframework developed by Castro Martin and Juarez hypothesizes that education maydepress fertility rates for a number of reasons, including improved literacy and

cognitive skills that increase the likelihood of interaction between women andpublic health institutions; improved knowledge of the biology of reproduction

(which raises the potential efficacy of contraceptive use); and changes in attitudesthat that raise the likelihood of using contraceptives

2.2.1.2 Demand — supply framework

Van de Kaa (1996, p 410) highlights the following important findings in the

demand-oriented models: there is a strong interaction between the quantity andquality of children although the two are not close substitutes, and the demand for

children is highly responsive to their price This means that parents often consider

the kind of life they can offer to their children when they make decisions aboutfamily size, and this includes the costs of childcare But Van de Kaa also exposes apotential weakness in this model, i.e., it may be hard to apply to less developedcountries because time may not be a real constraint to numerous low-incomehouseholds

Later recognizing that the demand-oriented model obviously focused only onone side of the story and did not dwell on the supply side, economists like Easterlin (1975) started to pursue a demand-supply framework on fertility Nevertheless Easterlin (1975, p 54) commended the important contributions of the household production model He cited that: The model clarifies the concept of full income for analyzing fertility decisions; reduces the conceptual confusion between cost of

children and expenditures per child and that rising incomes may even increase the demand for both quantity and quality of children; and explicitly recognizes both the competition between children and economic goods for parental time and the value

of that time to each parent In the basic model of Easterlin (1975, p-57), the

determinants of fertility work through three main variables — demand and supply

of children and the costs of fertility regulation — and their immediate determinants.These main determinants in relation with regulation cost are explained in detail as

follows:

(a) The demand for children (Cd) if fertility regulation were costless: Thedeterminants are income, price of children and the subjective preference forchildren relative to other goods;

(b)The potential supply of children (C,) if no conscious effort were made to control

fertility: The determinants are natural fertility and the survival prospects of a baby

to adulthood; and

(c) The cost of fertility regulation: Fertility regulation, in this case, refers to theindividual’s desire or action to control the factors affecting childbirth Thedeterminants are the attitudes and the time and money needed to learn and use thetechniques of regulation.

The motivation for regulating fertility is jointly determined by the supplyand demand for children If there is an excess demand situation, there is no need touse fertility regulation even if knowledge is available Whereas, if there is anexcess supply situation, which implies the presence of unwanted children, there

is an incentive to use fertility regulation Actual use depends on how the costcompares with the motivation These costs are affected by attitudes and access tofertility regulation techniques Accessing fertility regulation techniques, in turn,involves the availability of methods and the information on these, and their prices

A fuller specification of the theoretical model was developed in Easterlinand Crimmins (as cited in Van de Kaa, 1996, p 412) It considers modernizationfactors such as education and urbanization, cultural and genetic factors, as well asthe proximate determinants—those that very closely affect fertility likenuptiality, contraception and infecundability Easterlin also suggests thatincreases in education and urbanization may raise natural fertility, andtherefore, affect the supply side, as these improve health and break downtraditional cultural practices

Bongaarts developed an alternative implementation of Easterlin’s model tomake it empirically feasible to apply His variant introduces a new variable, the

18

Cost of fertility

regulation

Cost of unwanted childbearing

degree of preference implementation, through which the costs and benefits of fertility regulation are reflected (Bongaarts 1993) This is shown in Figure 2.1

Figure 2.1: Key variables and interrelations in a variant ofEasterlin ’ssupply —

demand model

Source: Bongaarts (1993, p.441)

Also using the demand-supply framework, Cochrane (1979, pp 53-55)specifically focused on the indirect effects of parental education on fertility, i.e.,where the effect of education works through intervening variables These variablesinclude eight supply factors, seven demand factors and five fertility regulationfactors But, as she herself admitted, the model’s weakness is that it covers a broadrange of variables and interactions that make it difficult to develop amathematically structured model

Table 2.2 Intervening variables in Cochrane ’smodel on education and fertility.

variablesPreferences for children Probability of being married Husband’s marital power

Supply of births

(Natural fertility, F,

Demand forbirths Fertility, F(Wanted fertility, Fwd

Degree ofpreference

implementation, Ip

19

Taboos on sexual activity

Infant and child mortality

Husband-wifecommunication

Knowledge of birth controlAttitude towards birthcontrol

Access to birth control

The model focuses on the decision to have another child, rather than on the

total demand for children, and how this decision is determined by demand and

supply factors as well as regulation factors The model also explicitly incorporatesthe separate preferences of husbands and wives and their interactions

In Cochrane’s (1979, pp.75-77) analysis, education may have both positive

and negative effects on fertility on the supply side, but on the demand side the effect

seems to be more negative On fertility regulation, education increases the

knowledge and practice of fertility regulation—including increased communication

between husbands and wives about the matter, therefore, affects fertility negatively

2.2.2 Empirical studies related to effects of women’s education on fertility

There are a number of studies focused the determinants of fertility inVietnam and other countries In Vietnam, many researchers used the secondary data

20

from VHLSS or VDHS to analyze fertility determinants via descriptive statisticsmethod Nguyen (2001) with data from VHLSS 1997-1998 exploredsocioeconomic determinants of fertility in Vietnam The study investigated theeffects of factors including women’s age, schooling, occupation, religion, area ofresidence, marital status, household income, and infrastructure condition onfertility Similarly, Shapiro (1996) who also observed the relationship betweenfertility and women’s employment, education and family planning in Vietnamthrough data from VDHS

• 1998 and Population census in 1999 The research of Nguyen-Dinh (1997) using a

microeconomic model, a demand-supply framework, on the 1988 Vietnam Demographic and Health Survey, which covered 4,172 ever-married women in theirchildbearing ages, 15-49, to study the socioeconomic determinants of fertility Two important results relevant to the current research are (1) that paternal education significantly lowers household fertility levels in Vietnam and (2) this negative effect

of education is not based on the opportunity cost, but on attitudinal and/or information effects that influence preferences for children Beside socioeconomic

determinants, Le ef at (1999) used data in the period 1993-1998 to analyze

proximate determinants of fertility in Vietnam such as age of marriage,

contraceptive use, abortion and infecundability etc

Ainsworth (1989) used the model of demand for children of Becker andOLS technique to find out the effect of women’s education and householdincome on fertility in Cote d’Ivoire Cochrane (1979) argues that earlier

21

economists such as Malthus and his successors have proposed theories about whymore education is

21

inversely related to fertility However, the relationship between education and

fertility is more complex than suggested Though the underlying pattern most

commonly known shows a negative relationship, there are instances where positive relationships at very low and very high levels of schooling have been found

Bledsoe eI at (1999) suggested that understanding the nature and strength of the

relationship between education and fertility remains a central challenge both for researchers seeking to explain demographic and social changes and for policy makers who must decide on the allocation of scarce public resources According to Martin and Juarez (1995, pp 53), education is a “source” of knowledge

transmission, “vehicle” of socioeconomic advancement, and a “transformer” of attitudes In the contemporary world, any development depends on the effective transmission of new information As a source of knowledge transmission, Martin

and Juarez showed that schooling imparts literacy skills, which enable people to process a wide range of information and arouse cognitive change that shape individuals interaction with their surrounding environment As a vehicle of socioeconomic development, the authors hypothesized that education not only

enhances cognitive abilities, but also it opens up economic opportunities and social

mobility In the contemporary world, education credentials open the door for formal

employment and for sorting individuals into the hierarchy of occupations

Educated women are more likely to exercise the “quality-quantity trade-off’

of their children Most of these women are likely to see the benefit of their

schooling; they may develop higher aspirations for their own children’s schooling

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It is obvious that as the number of children increases, familial resources available

to an individual child decrease Restricting the number of children is the bestsolution in order to have better educated children and more familial resources perchild It would be advantageous for a woman to have fewer children that she canafford to pay for the tuition and other related fees associated with schooling, hencethe trade- off between quality and quantity of children

* Other determinants

Besides education, a large number of variables also pose effect to fertility

For example, Bongaarts et at (1984) consider two groups of variables:

socioeconomic variables and proximate variables Socioeconomic variables include

education, social, cultural, economic, and health variables whereas proximatevariables include biological and behavioral variables such as contraception and age

of a woman Davis and Blake (1956), Bongaarts and Potter (1983) hypothesize that

in order for the socioeconomic variables to affect fertility, they must operate

through proximate determinants

Another factor is the age at first marriage Women who get married earlyhave a longer period where the likelihood of an additional child is greater Anadditional reason for including age at first marriage is that this variable might partlycontrol for a woman’s “social status,” since high income and highly educatedindividuals are likely to get married late Other fertility studies, such as Kiernan

23

(1989), and Santos Silva and Covas (2000) find a negative effect of a late marriage

on the probability of having children

Cultural traits such as son preference and number of siblings are important to

explain fertility behavior in a traditional society such as Vietnam, therefore, they

deserves to be looked in detail Khan and Khanum (2000) found that sons are generally preferred over daughters owing to a complex interplay of economic and socio—cultural factors Hank and Hans-Peter (2000) suggest that son preference is embedded in cultural and religious traditions and community norms as well as economical factors, shaping individual attitudes and behavior In most developing countries where women are economically and socially dependent on men, male offspring are presumed to have greater economic net utility than female offspring The argument is that sons can help to provide old age support to their parents This

is particularly important in most developing countries where there is no other form

of old-age security Hank and Hans-Kohler (2002) suggest that sex preferences for

children might have implications for a couple’s fertility behavior, where parents who desire one or more children of a certain sex should tend to have larger families

than would otherwise be the case Studies by Duncan eI at (1965), Axinn ef at

(1994) have found a direct relationship between the number of children born to a family and the number of children within the couple’s (husband and/or wife) family

In other words, a couple from larger families is more likely to mimic the sexual behavior of their parents hence breeding intergenerational inheritance of family size

38

Another important determinant of fertility decision is the contraceptiveknowledge and application Access to information about and the actual use ofseveral birth control measures and medical facilities services can be critical in

slowing population growth in low-income countries The use of contraceptive mayhelp in avoiding pregnancies for woman who want to limit her birth, to space birth

or to avoid bearing child This being so, it can be expected that differences in access

to, and/or the use of birth control will explain the fertility variations The use mightdiffer between rural communities and urban centers Therefore variable indicatingwhether the couple grew up in a rural or urban area is included in explainingfertility decision

2.3Summary

This chapter presents literature review of the theories of fertility, fertility

determinants and empirical studies on fertility Fertility is measured by total number

children ever born per woman is of interest in the study From literature review, a

group of explanatory variables including women’s education, age, knowledge ofovulatory, family planning, her partner’s education, type of place of residence, age

at first birth will be examined empirically After exploring and analyzing many

previous studies, the household demand approach is used as a core of fertilitymodel in my research and Poisson regression model The framework will bespecified to apply for estimation the effects of women’s education on fertility inVietnam

CHAPTER THREE RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter deals with the methodological aspects of this study It presentsthe source of data, structure of VDHS 2002, model specification, variables ofinterest, and strategy estimation Firstly, structure of VDHS 2002 and data set arepresented Secondly, the suggested model will be specified with specific variables.Dependent and independent variables, their definition, expected signs also shown.Then, estimation method is described in detail

3.1 Structure of the VDHS 2002

The sample unit for the VDHS 2002 was based on that used in the VDHS

1997, which in turn was a subsample of the 1996 Multi-Round DemographicSurvey (MRS), a semi-annual survey of about 243,000 households undertakenregularly by GSO The MRS sample consisted of 1,590 sample areas known asenumeration areas (EAs) spread throughout the 53 provinces/cities of Vietnam, with

30 EAs in each province On average, an EA comprises about 150 households Forthe VDHS 1997, a subsample of 205 EAs was selected, with 26 households in each

urban EA and 39 households for each rural EA A total of 7,150 households wereselected for the survey The VDHS 1997 was designed to provide separateestimates for the whole country, urban and rural areas, for 18 project provinces andthe remaining non project provinces as well

Because the main objective of the VDHS 2002 was to measure change inreproductive health indicators over the five years since the VDHS 1997, the sample

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