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Health and Fertility Study

This study investigates explanations for the relationships between schooling and the health and fertility-related behaviour of poor households. It also examines questions relating to reproductive citizenship, women's agency and empowerment in poor communities. Using both qualitative and quantitative methods, it examines

  • whether the current orthodoxies about the strong positive relationships between a woman's schooling and her decision-making power are robust and, if so, it examines the pathways through which such effects operate;
  • whether schooling 'works' through community or individual influences;
  • whether there are threshold effects, and whether schooling effects on health and fertility are different for the poor than for the less poor;
  • how teachers, officials, NGO workers and other educational stakeholders might develop better strategies to enhance pro-poor policies in local communities.
Related news and links:

Project documents:
Terms of Reference

News:
Health & Fertility study fieldwork is approaching its completion in Pakistan
Research skills workshop completed in Ghana
Qualitative skills workshop held in Nairobi, Kenya

Working Papers:
Schooling, transitions and reproductive citizenship for poor people in urban and rural north India: Preliminary results from Alwar and Dewas

For more information, please email Prof. Roger Jeffery at R.Jeffery@ed.ac.uk