A plot of the Cox PH survival rates at different ages for all women and the 3 educational groups (less than primary, KCPE or some secondary, at least secondary complete) is given by Figure 7. All women incur a reduction in the probability of becoming a mother at all ages after the Reform is implemented. The Reform has no effect on women who drop out before the KCPE, little impact on women with the KCPE or some secondary education, but a large impact on women with at least a complete secondary education: the reduction in the “survival” rate reaches 35 percentage points (a reduction of almost one half) between the age of 19 and 21.

The results of equation (3) are presented in Table 11. Not surprisingly, the models with no instrumentation show larger reducing effects of education on survival rates (columns 1, 3, 5). In the I.V. regressions, when education increases by one year, the rate of switching to motherhood decreases by 7.3% on average for women with at least the KCPE, and 5.6% for women with at least a secondary degree.

# 5. Conclusion

_“The increase in the education of women and girls contributes to greater empowerment of the women, to a postponement of the age of marriage, and to a reduction in the size of families.”_<sup>_21_</sup> This study confirms that education has a strong influence on early reproductive outcomes, and that legislation aimed at improving educational outcomes may have spillover effects onto the fertility decisions of teenagers. This is of fundamental interest to actors of health, social and economic development: early childbearing is known to have a number of potentially adverse effects, including higher mother and child morbidity and mortality, truncated educational opportunities, and lower family income. As the timing of the first birth is often an indicator of future fertility patterns, reduced teenage fertility may also help reduce long-term fertility, a goal for most developing countries with high fertility rates.

Adolescent fertility in Kenya occupies a prime place in the design and implementation of reproductive health strategies, policies and programs. In an attempt to reduce fertility of this special group, the government, through the Ministry of Health and the National Council for Population and Development, has recently put in place an Adolescent Reproductive Health Policy to help meet the needs of this group. Our paper shows that higher levels of education decrease by at least 10 percentage points the probability of giving birth when still a teenager (taking the most conservative results). Knowing that the probability of having one’s first child before age 20 when having at least completed primary education is about 65%, this entails a reduction of about 15% of teenage fertility rates (for those having at least completed the KCPE). One additional year of school curbs the probability of becoming a mother each year by respectively 7.3 and 5.6% for women with at least a primary and at least a secondary degree.

Due to the nature of the Kenyan 1985 Reform, it is however difficult to disentangle channels through which education reduced early fertility. We put forward three channels through which education could have an impact on fertility: time incompatibility, knowledge effect and increased autonomy. When we chose the 1985 Reform as an instrument, we ruled out the “knowledge” channel: women subject to the Reform did not benefit from increased contraception and fertility education. To carefully test the time incompatibility hypothesis we would have needed the age at which women left school, which we did not have. Increasing the number of years spent in school increased women’s autonomy and power of decision: if such a process happened, women should

> 21 United Nations, 1994.

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