Snopkowski Kristin, Towner Mary C, Shenk Mary K, Colleran Heidi
Department of Anthropology, Boise State University, 1910 University Drive, Boise, ID 83725, USA
Department of Integrative Biology, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK 74078, USA.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2016 Apr 19;371(1692):20150156. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2015.0156.
Women's education has emerged as a central predictor of fertility decline, but the many ways that education affects fertility have not been subject to detailed comparative investigation. Taking an evolutionary biosocial approach, we use structural equation modelling to examine potential pathways between education and fertility including: infant/child mortality, women's participation in the labour market, husband's education, social network influences, and contraceptive use or knowledge across three very different contexts: Matlab, Bangladesh; San Borja, Bolivia; and rural Poland. Using a comparable set of variables, we show that the pathways by which education affects fertility differ in important ways, yet also show key similarities. For example, we find that across all three contexts, education is associated with delayed age at first birth via increasing women's labour-force participation, but this pathway only influences fertility in rural Poland. In Matlab and San Borja, education is associated with lower local childhood mortality, which influences fertility, but this pathway is not important in rural Poland. Similarities across sites suggest that there are common elements in how education drives demographic transitions cross-culturally, but the differences suggest that local socioecologies also play an important role in the relationship between education and fertility decline.
女性教育已成为生育率下降的核心预测因素，但教育影响生育率的多种方式尚未得到详细的比较研究。我们采用进化生物社会学方法，运用结构方程模型来研究教育与生育率之间的潜在途径，这些途径包括：婴儿/儿童死亡率、女性劳动力市场参与度、丈夫的教育程度、社会网络影响以及避孕措施的使用或知识水平，研究涉及三个截然不同的地区：孟加拉国的马特莱布、玻利维亚的圣博尔哈以及波兰农村。通过使用一组可比变量，我们发现教育影响生育率的途径在重要方面存在差异，但也有关键的相似之处。例如，我们发现在所有这三个地区，教育通过提高女性劳动力参与度与初育年龄延迟相关，但这条途径仅在波兰农村影响生育率。在马特莱布和圣博尔哈，教育与当地较低的儿童死亡率相关，这会影响生育率，但这条途径在波兰农村并不重要。不同地区的相似之处表明，在教育如何跨文化推动人口转变方面存在共同因素，但差异表明当地社会生态在教育与生育率下降之间的关系中也起着重要作用。
