Thesis supervisor: Tamás Bartus
Location of studies (in Hungarian): Corvinus University of Budapest Abbreviation of location of studies: BCE
Description of the research topic:
The expansion of higher education is often viewed as one of the causes of low fertility. Several explanations have been proposed for why educational expansion may result in fertility decline. First, participation in education is incompatible with childbearing, and longer participation in education leads to the postponement of family formation. Second, rapid expansion of educational opportunities lead to an "education fever", a growing emphasize on child quality and an increase in the expected costs of childbearing. Finally, the expansion of higher education went hand in hand with with the reversal of the traditional gender gap in education, forcing more and more women to "marry down".
The objective of the research project is to assess the relative importance of the aforementioned explanations. The quantitative analysis of available datasets (e.g., the international Generations and Gender Survey) is preferable, but qualitative contributions are also possible.
Recommended readings:
Neels, K., Murphy, M., Ní Bhrolcháin, M., Beaujouan, É., (2017): Rising Educational Participation and the Trend to Later Childbearing. Population and Development Review, 43: (4) 667-693.
Anderson, T., Kohler, H-P. (2013), Education Fever and the East Asian Fertility Puzzle: A case study of low fertility in South Korea.
Asian Population Studies, 9(2): 196-215.
Nitsche, N., Matysiak, A., Van Bavel, J. Vignoli, D., (2015), Partners’ Educational Pairings and Fertility across Europe. Families and Societies Working Paper Series, no. 38.
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