Duration of high school education on early fertility and marriage: evidence from a policy change in Ghana

Abstract

Purpose – The objective of this paper is to examine the effect of spending one extra year in high school on early marriage and childbirth. Design/methodology/approach – The study takes advantage of the education reform in 2007 that extended the years of high school education by one to conduct a quasi experiment. The marriage and fertility outcomes of women who completed a four-year senior high school education are compared to those who completed a threeyear senior high school education. Findings – The findings from the study indicate that the one-year extension in high school education led to a 4.75 percentage point reduction in the probability of ever marrying by age 27 and a 6.7 percentage point reduction in the probability of ever given birth. The authors demonstrate that the extension of the duration of high school education by one year has a heterogeneous effect, as it reduced the fertility and marriage outcomes of rural girls more than urban girls. The study reveals opportunity costs and confinement effects as possible mechanisms through which the policy affected early marriage and birth. Originality/value – This study is one of the few studies that examine the impact of the duration of secondary school education on fertility and marriage. For Africa in particular, there is no such study. Thus, this study provides a unique contribution to the literature since available studies on this subject matter can only be found in advanced economies. Unlike other studies in Africa that use a design that provides the combined effect of duration of schooling and school enrolment on fertility and marriage, this design enables the authors to only look at the effect of duration of schooling on fertility and marriage.