Education Expansion, Urbanization and Fertility Change in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Decomposition Approach

Fabio Pastor , Université de Strasbourg / UCLouvain

This working paper examines how educational progress and urbanization contribute to fertility change in Sub-Saharan Africa. Despite rapid structural transformations, the region maintains the highest fertility levels worldwide. Using Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) from 18 countries between 1987 and 2023, we reconstruct fertility and education trends and apply decomposition techniques to identify the separate contributions of education and rural-urban residence to national fertility change. Three models are employed: a rural–urban decomposition; a combined residence–education decomposition; and a two-stage approach that separates educational change within rural and urban contexts from the effect of urbanization. Results show that fertility decline is largely driven by rural women, particularly those with little or no education. Nonetheless, compositional shifts associated with educational progress and urbanization play a significant role in countries such as Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria. Findings underscore the central role of rural education in fertility transitions and highlight the heterogeneity of demographic change across the region.

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 Presented in Session P8. Demographic Trends, History, Data and Methods