The Link Between Childbearing and Women's Education

A study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academic of Sciences raises questions about the reasons that highly educated women have fewer children on average than do less educated women. Conventional wisdom holds that the time spent earning advanced degrees limits the childbearing of women who do so. But the study -- based on detailed analysis of women in Norway -- found that the childbearing gaps result from those women who have children at young ages not pursuing more education. The research was conducted by scholars at Rockefeller University and the University of Oslo.