Family size and educational attainment in Kenya
Gomes, M.
Population and Development Review 10(4): 647-660
1984
ISSN/ISBN: 0098-7921 DOI: 10.2307/1973285Document Number: 411638
The negative relationship between level of education and family size, whether expressed in terms of the link between parental education and desired family size or in terms of the link between child schooling and number of siblings, has held consistently across countries in both cross-sectional and time-series data. Using a new set of data for rural and urban Kenya, the paper focuses on the second of the two expected negative relationships: that between a child's educational attainment and number of siblings. The data show that the rates of return to education in Kenya rise with level of schooling. The paper begins by outlining the major features and assumptions of the household production model and reviews the role that education, as a major human capital cost, is expected to play in determining parental demand for numbers and quality of children. Empirical evidence is then adduced to show that, contrary to popular belief, in countries like Kenya large families do not inhibit the achievement of particular levels of educational attainment, or limit the income prospects of their members, since parents need not view schooling as an investment alternative to having additional children. Owing to rising rates of return to education and the strength of parental control over the labour income of eldest sons, the question facing parents is not whether they should bear and better educate a few children or bear and inadequately educate many children. They can have many children, and properly educate a high proportion of them, as long as they pay for the educational costs of their eldest children from their own income and later induce the advantaged children to finance the education of their younger siblings.