Educational Assortative Mating and Fertility in Brazil

Maria C. Tomas, University of California, Berkeley

This paper analyzes the influences of women and men’s education in observed fertility, and whether women with higher education than men have more influence in the number of children the couple has, in Brazil. The data is from the DHS for the years 1986 and 1996 and from the National Household Survey on Health and Demography (PNDS) for 2006. The analysis used the diagonal mobility model. The results show that women’s education influences fertility more than men’s education and when women have higher education than men it increases women’s influence. The discussion focuses on whether and how women's education have changed its influence on couple's fertility, in a context of increasing education and women empowerment.