Education and its Impact on Birth Rates

Source: School room, Rob Shenk, Flickr.

Typically, education has a dramatic impact on birth rates. For our purposes, we will look at three factors. The literacy rate of the country, percent of population completing primary school, and the percentage of the population pursuing higher degrees. All of these things have an impact on the number of children who are born to a population in a given year. Literacy Rate The literacy rate is the percentage of the population over the age of 15 who can read. This is an important factor in determining the birth rate because a more educated population tends to be more informed regarding birth control methods.

Click here to access a world map showing the literacy rate of different countries.

Compare this map to the previous map of birth rates. What do you notice? You should see that the countries with a higher birth rate, also have a much lower literacy rate.

Percent of Primary Students Who Complete Primary Grades (Primary Completion Rate)
The maps on the links below illustrate the percentage of males/females  of the population entering the last grade of primary school.
This is a good indicator of the education level of the majority of the population of a given country. The lower the education of the population, the less likely they are to be informed about birth control methods. In addition, the higher the level of education, the more likely there is to be women in the workforce. Women who work are less likely to have a large number of children.

• Click here to access the map of primary completion rates for females.
• Click here to access the map of primary completion rates for males.

Compare these maps to the previous maps of Birth and Literacy Rates. What do you notice? You should notice that the countries with low literacy rates also show low rates for primary grade completion. How does this connect to the birth rate map? Do you see a trend?

Percentage of Population Pursuing Higher Degrees

This percentage tells you how many people out of every 1000 in the population are enrolled in college or are pursuing some higher degree. Again, the presence of an educated population will lead to a lower birth rate as people have more knowledge of birth control methods and spend more time working leaving less time for child rearing.

• Click here to access a world map showing the Percentage of Population Pursuing Higher Degrees. Below the map you will see a bar graph of the same statistics.
  
  You should see the same trends with this map as you did with the previous two.

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