Simultaneity of Fertility and Schooling Decisions in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

Moussa Bougma, Université de Montréal
Jean-François Kobiané, Université de Ouagadougou

This study assesses the simultaneity of reproductive decisions and children's schooling in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso. Propensity score matching is used for analysis, based on data come from Ouagadougou Health and Demographic Surveillance System and Demtrend, a retrospective survey conducted in 2012 on a subset of the HDSS. The results schow that parents in Ouagadougou appear to anticipate the future costs of educating their children when making fertility decisions. This simultaneity of fertility and schooling decisions means that the observed relation between in fertility and child schooling should not be interpreted as only a dilution effect. Future research on the causal effects of fertility decline on child schooling in sub-Saharan Africa must consider the endogeneity of the family size. Fertility is not independent to schooling aspirations; the assumption of natural fertility not tenable in this context.