EDUCATION, FEMALE LABOR FORCE STATUS, AND FERTILITY INTERRELATIONSHIPS: A STUDY OF DYNAMICS AND DIFFERENTIALS IN SRI LANKA, 1971

Most recent empirical research supports the view that an expansion of opportunities for non-familial employment for women, besides its intrinsic potential to raise females' status also tends to reduce fertility and, therefore, population growth. Some researchers, however, argue that females' propensities to engage in economic activities outside home as well as to lower their fertility are in many ways linked to their educational attainments and other socio-cultural factors. This study, using 1971 census data of Sri Lanka, primarily tests the validity of these propositions from a cross-sectional perspective.

There is a strong positive relationship between education and female labor force participation when the former exceeds the primary level. When females' education exceeds 5 to 9 years in school, not only does it lead to a rapid rise in female work participation but also minimizes cultural differences. Our analysis, also, reveals that the impact of cultural factors influencing work propensities of women, positively or negatively, in a given ethnic group is conspicuous only when they live in an ethnic group's cultural domain. Unemployment, which is phenomenally high, is positively related with education, except at the highest level. It is concentrated among women who are aged 15 to 29, and are never married.

When the educational level is primary and higher, there is a consistent inverse relationship between education and fertility. The commonly observed pattern, lower urban fertility than non-urban, is confined to women in the older ages, 40-49; for women below age 30, the pattern is reversed. Women who work in family enterprises have a fertility level not only higher than that of those working in the formal sector as employees but also than that of the housewives. The relationship between female work and fertility is inverse only when women are in non-familial employment. The above relationships reflect, for the most part, the association of education. However, at the highest educational level, activity status differential in fertility disappears. Observed differences in fertility by work status largely operate through the age at first marriage differential. Women with higher educational attainments are in non-familial employment and have lower fertility, and vice versa.

The study strongly suggests that raising female education is a far reaching policy strategy capable of contributing to economic growth, given other things, both by an increase in the productivity of females in economic activities and a concomitant reduction in their fertility.