The spread of primary schooling in sub-Saharan Africa: Implications for fertility change

In 1980 Caldwell hypothesized that the time of the onset of the fertility t ransition in developing countries would be linked with the achievement of " mass formal schooling. This article applies Demographic and Health Survey d ata to assess schooling patterns and trends for 23 sub-Saharan African coun tries, using the percentage of 15-19-year olds who have completed at least four years of schooling as an indicator of progress in education. As backgr ound to that assessment, the article includes a review of the sparse litera ture on the links between children's schooling and fertility decline. The a nalysis strongly supports Caldwell's hypothesis with empirical evidence of the much stronger negative relationship between fertility decline and grade 4 attainment in those countries that have attained mass-schooling levels t han in those that have not yet achieved such levels.