Reframing the Relationship Between Fertility and Education in Adolescence: 60 Years of Evidence From Latin America

Abstract It is a demographic puzzle that Latin America and the Caribbean's high levels of adolescent fertility have persisted over the course of its dramatic fertility transitions and schooling expansions. These phenomena usually occur alongside postponements to entry into motherhood. To tackle the puzzle, this study untangles, in basic mechanical terms, how the region has maintained such high levels of adolescent fertility. It also delves into the broader theoretical underpinnings of the relationship between schooling and the timing of fertility, which it categorizes into enrollment (i.e. incarceration) and aspirational effects. The study uses 96 nationally representative demographic surveys from 15 countries in the region to produce cohort‐based estimates of the magnitude and timing of parity‐specific adolescent childbearing for school attainment profiles measured in single years. Changes in the likelihood of experiencing adolescent motherhood or having multiple births in adolescence for different schooling careers interlock with surprising findings regarding the timings of those births. The results strongly suggest that school enrollment's ability to forestall fertility appears as effective today as it was over half a century ago, while schooling's aspirational influence has been dramatically modified under changing context and reorganized social hierarchies.