title: Fertility Limitation and Child Schooling in Ouagadougou: Selective Fertility or Resource Dilution?
abstract: Using original data collected in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, this study investigates evidence for the competing theories that fertility reductions increase children's education through either the quantity-quality tradeoff (intentionally choosing smaller families to make greater investments in education and other indicators of child quality) or resource dilution (having more children reduces resources available per child, regardless of intentionality of family size). The results provide evidence for both hypotheses: children having four or fewer siblings were significantly more likely to be enrolled in school if their mothers had intentionally stopped childbearing relative to those whose mothers wanted more children but whose childbearing was limited by subfecundity. The difference between intentional and unintentional family limitation was not significant for parities greater than five. In addition, the relationship between number of siblings and their schooling is negative, regardless of the intentionality of family-size limitation, but the strength of this negative relationship is approximately twice as high among children whose mothers intentionally limited fertility (reflecting both selection and dilution effects) than among children whose mothers were subfecund (reflecting the pure dilution effect).
authors.affiliation: Doctoral candidate and Thomas K. LeGrand is Professor of Demography, Department of Demography, University of Montreal, 3150 rue Jean-Brillant, Montréal (Québec), Canada, H3T 1N8. moussa.bougma@umontreal.ca.
authors.forename: Moussa
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bougma
authors.affiliation: Doctoral candidate and Thomas K. LeGrand is Professor of Demography, Department of Demography, University of Montreal, 3150 rue Jean-Brillant, Montréal (Québec), Canada, H3T 1N8.
authors.forename: Thomas K
authors.initials: TK
authors.lastname: LeGrand
authors.affiliation: Associate Professor of Demography, University of Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
authors.forename: Jean-François
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Kobiané
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002050:Burkina Faso; D002648:Child; D003267:Contraception / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D004493:Education / Q000191:economics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D004522:Educational Status; D005191:Family Characteristics; D005193:Family Planning Services; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D033182:Intention; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009035:Mothers; D040841:Resource Allocation / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors