
















































AUSTRALIAN POPULATION STUDIES 2019 | Volume 3 | Issue 2 | pages 1-15 
 

 

© Gray and Evans 2019. Published under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial licence 3.0 Australia  
(CC BY-NC 3.0 AU). Journal website: www.australianpopulationstudies.org 

Changing education, changing fertility: 
a decomposition of completed fertility 
in Australia 

Edith Gray*  The Australian National University 
Ann Evans  The Australian National University 

* Email: edith.gray@anu.edu.au. Address: School of Demography, Research School of Social Sciences, 
The Australian National University, ACT 2601 

Paper received 23 May 2019; accepted 3 September 2019; published 18 November 2019 

Abstract 

Background 

The expansion of education in Australia, particularly for women, is one of the most significant social 
changes of the last five decades. The relationship between education and fertility has been widely 
studied, showing that increases in higher education for women are consistently associated with 
lower fertility. Given the close link between education and fertility, this paper questions what effect 
the changing educational profile of Australian women has had on overall fertility trends. 

Aims 

This paper investigates the effect of the increase in education on completed fertility by decomposing 
the change in overall completed fertility into two components: (1) change in completed fertility as a 
result of the proportion of women in different education categories and, (2) changes in completed 
fertility of women in each education category. 

Data and methods 

The study uses 2016 Census data on the number of children ever born of five cohorts of women born 
between 1952 and 1976. Decomposition is used to distinguish the effects of the two components. 

Results 

The educational composition of women in these cohorts is dramatically different, with an increasing 
number of women having completed tertiary education in later cohorts. Completed fertility has also 
changed across successive cohorts. We find that for the earliest cohorts most of the decline is due to 
declines in completed fertility within education categories, but for later cohorts the decline is 
attributable to increases in the proportion of women with higher levels of education. 

Conclusions 

Despite tertiary education becoming much more common, fertility within this group remains lower 
than other education groups. While other countries have seen a narrowing of the gap in fertility rates 
between education groups, this pattern is not found in Australia. 

Key words 

Education; fertility; fertility decline; children ever born; Census; decomposition.  

 

http://www.australianpopulationstudies.org/
mailto:edith.gray@anu.edu.au


2 Gray & Evans Australian Population Studies 3 (2) 2019 

 

1. Introduction  

The expansion of education in Australia is one of the most significant social changes of the last five 
decades. The 2016 Census marked the first time in Australian history that the proportion of women 
aged 40-44 with a university degree (36 per cent) exceeded the proportion with no post-school 
qualification (30 per cent). This is a remarkable increase from 30 years earlier when just 5 per cent had 
a university degree and 70 per cent had no post-school qualification (ABS 1988). Given the close link 
between education and fertility, we question what effect the changing educational profile of the 
population has had on overall fertility trends over time. As the category of women with higher 
educational qualifications has become less selective (Adsera 2017), has the negative relationship 
between educational attainment and fertility weakened for younger cohorts? 

The relationship between education and fertility has been one of the most widely studied topics in 
demography. Decades of research has consistently found that at both the individual and population 
level, higher education is almost universally associated with lower fertility (Cochrane 1979; Caldwell 
1980; Rindfuss et al. 1996; Musick et al. 2009). Women with higher levels of education tend to start 
childbearing later, have fewer children overall and are more likely to be childless. The reasons for this 
are numerous and include the ‘incarceration effect’ of longer time spent enrolled in education which 
delays the start of family formation (Heck et al. 1997; Ní Bhrolcháin and Beaujouan 2012), economic 
considerations including increased opportunity costs, changes in cultural or attitudinal factors such as 
increased knowledge and decision-making power regarding contraceptive use, and different values 
regarding gender and family dynamics (Fort et al. 2016; Neels et al. 2017). 

Over time, the difference in fertility between those with high and low education, can develop in three 
ways. They can: (1) narrow, (2) widen, or (3) stay stable. Recent research looking at change in 
educational differences across cohorts has been mixed. In South Korea, Yoo (2014) found that 
educational differences in completed fertility almost disappeared as the country went through the 
fertility transition. Similarly, in Denmark, Norway and Sweden education differences in cohort fertility 
have virtually disappeared in younger cohorts (Jalovaara et al. 2018; Andersson et al. 2009). However, a 
convergence of fertility across educational categories is not evident in all countries. A cross-national 
study of 25 European countries found that over time the negative gradient had remained strong in the 
Mediterranean and post-communist countries (Merz and Liefbroer 2017). In Great Britain, women with 
degree-level qualifications still have smaller family sizes than those with lower levels of education and 
this difference in quantum appears to have widened in recent years (Berrington et al. 2015). 

Evidently the relationship between education and fertility is complex and varies not only over time, but 
also from country to country according to institutional contexts such as family policies, labour market 
characteristics and gender norms (Liefbroer and Corijn 1999; Sobotka et al. 2017). It is suggested that 
educational differences in cohort fertility have all but disappeared in Nordic countries because their 
welfare-state policies focus on supporting gender equality and allowing men and women to combine 
family and work (Andersson et al. 2009; Kravdal and Rindfuss 2008).  

This paper investigates the effect of the increase in education on completed fertility, examining the 
completed fertility rate of five cohorts of women in Australia born between 1952-56 and 1972-76 – 
cohorts which experienced large changes in education patterns. These cohorts also experienced 
considerable change in completed fertility. To consider these changes, we decompose the overall 



Australian Population Studies 3 (2) 2019 Gray & Evans 3 

 

 

change in completed fertility to analyse how it changed due to two factors: changes in the proportion 
of women in each education category, and changes in fertility of women in education categories. We 
note that many other changes in family formation also occurred for these cohorts including increases in 
non-marital childbearing, divorce and cohabitation without marriage. 

Drawing on this analysis, we determine what proportion of the change in completed fertility across 
cohorts is due to the changing education patterns, and what proportion is due to changing fertility 
patterns within education categories. We begin by outlining recent trends in education, focusing on the 
period of 1960s to 1990s, the time period when most of the women in these cohorts would have been 
completing secondary education and gaining post-school qualifications. We then examine differences 
in completed fertility across education categories and how this has changed over time. 

2. The expansion of education since the 1960s  

The 1960s marked the large-scale expansion of secondary schooling in Australia. During the 1960s 
and 1970s there was growing political and public support for a system of comprehensive high schools 
which would enrol everyone regardless of merit or aptitude (Campbell and Proctor 2014). The 
influential 1973 Karmel report called for reform in the education sector including establishing 
standards of achievement and ensuring adequate resourcing. It also addressed the existing gender 
inequality in male and female school completion. The report influenced a large increase in 
Commonwealth funding during the Whitlam government of the early 1970s. However, the economic 
crisis of the later 1970s and early 1980s, which was marred by high unemployment and inflation, led 
to restrictions on education expenditure (Burke and Spaull 2001).  

There are many different measures that can be used to show how education has expanded, but one 
of the most common is the participation rate at selected ages. The participation rate measures the 
proportion of the population at a selected age enrolled in an educational institution. The 
participation rate at age 16 from 1966 to 2000 is shown in Figure 1. There was a dramatic rise in 
participation at age 16 throughout the 1960s, a plateau in the late 1970s and 1980s which may have 
been due to the economic crisis, followed again by an increase in the 1980s. In the mid-60s less than 
half of boys and girls aged 16 attended school. By 1970 this had increased to 55 per cent and 47 per 
cent respectively, and by 1980 to 56 and 60 per cent, with girls surpassing boys in the mid-1970s. 

Another education indicator often used to study trends over time is apparent retention rate to Year 
12, which is the final year of high school completed at around age 18. This apparent retention rate is 
expressed as the number of students of a particular sex enrolled in Year 12 as a percentage of the 
cohort of students of the same sex who first commenced secondary schooling (Le and Miller 2002). 
In 1971 the apparent retention rate to year 12 was 27 per cent for females and 34 per cent for males. 
By 1991 this had increased to 77 per cent for females and 66 per cent for males. From 1976 the 
percent of female students continuing to Year 12 exceeded that of males, although this is partly 
explained by the greater uptake of trade and apprenticeship courses by males than females after 
completing Year 10 (ABS 1993 p. 95). 

 



4 Gray & Evans Australian Population Studies 3 (2) 2019 

 

 
Figure 1: Participation rate in school at age 16 by sex, 1966-2000 
Source: Anderson and Vernon 1983; Long et al. 1999; ABS 2001, 2009. 

In line with increasing school completion already noted, there has also been an increase in the 
population with tertiary education. The increase in the total enrolment in higher education is shown 
in Figure 2. Part of the increase shown is a consequence of the progressive upgrading to degree 
status of courses which were at diploma level or lower. This includes many vocational-oriented 
qualifications in fields such as teaching, accounting, surveying, and nursing, originally provided by the 
former institutes of technology, teacher’s colleges, colleges of advanced education, and technical 
colleges (ABS 1993). The fields of teaching and nursing are disproportionally female, so these 
changes had a direct impact on the percentage of women completing degree qualifications.  

 
Figure 2: Total enrolment in higher education by sex, 1966-2000 
Note:  Includes government Teachers Colleges from 1973 onwards. Includes non-government Teachers Colleges from 1974 
onwards. Figures for years from 1985 to 1993 progressively include State-funded basic nursing students who would 
previously have been trained in hospitals. 

Source: Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs (2001) 



Australian Population Studies 3 (2) 2019 Gray & Evans 5 

 

 

The other change in the education landscape is the changing nature of government funding models. 
In the early part of this period students paid tuition fees which were largely covered by merit-based 
Commonwealth scholarships. In 1973 the Whitlam government abolished fees. The impact of this is 
evident in a small but steep increase in tertiary enrolment, especially for women. In 1987 the 
government re-introduced fees through the Higher Education Administrative Charge (HEAC) and in 
1989 introduced the Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS), an interest free income-
contingent loan for students to assist with payments of tuition fees (Chapman 2011). These funding 
changes have clearly impacted total enrolment for men and women during the period of early 
adulthood for the cohorts covered in this study. 

3. Data and Methods 

In order to examine the relationship between education and fertility we use data from the 2016 
Census. The census collects information on the three key aspects needed for this analysis: highest 
level of education, age, and number of children ever born. As seen in Figures 1 and 2, the key period 
of educational expansion was in the 1960s to 1990s. To capture the experience of women going 
through secondary school and university during this period, we selected women born in a 19-year 
period from 1952 to 1976, split into five birth cohorts: 1952-56, 1957-61, 1962-66, 1967-71, 1972-76. 
At the time of the 2016 Census they were aged 60-64, 55-59, 50-54, 45-49 and 40-44 respectively 
(Table 1). 

Table 1: Cohort birth years and age at Census 

Cohort Age at 2016 Census Year turned 16 

1952-56 60-64 1968-72 

1957-61 55-59 1973-77 

1962-66 50-54 1978-82 

1967-71 45-49 1983-87 

1972-76 40-44 1988-92 

Detailed education categories are constructed from two variables: highest level of schooling and 
highest level of post-school qualifications gained. We were particularly interested in looking at 
detailed categories of educational attainment to gain a richer insight on the differences between 
high and low education.  

Our measure of completed fertility is based on the census question asked of all females aged 15 and 
over: how many babies they have ever given birth to. Using this ‘children ever born’ variable we 
calculate cohort fertility or average completed family size for each education category within each 
cohort. Cohort completed fertility is calculated by multiplying the number children by the total 
number of women, including those who have no children. For the cohort born in 1972-76 who are 
aged 40-44, childbearing is not fully complete. However, we note that in 2017, just under 5 per cent 
of births were to mothers aged 40 or over (ABS 2018), and more than half of these births were at 



6 Gray & Evans Australian Population Studies 3 (2) 2019 

 
ages 40 and 41, so the overall impact of right-censoring and loss of information about future births 
for this group is relatively small. 

We begin by outlining the educational composition and completed fertility for each cohort. We then 
decompose the overall change in completed fertility to see how it changed due to two factors: the 
proportion of women in a particular education category, and the completed fertility of women in 
that education category. We use Das Gupta’s (1993) decomposition method developed as a Stata 
program by Li (2017). As we are only using one factor (education) the formula to calculate the effect 
of education and composition, respectively is:  

𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸 𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝐸𝐸𝑐𝑐𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸 𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸 = �

𝐸𝐸𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖
𝐸𝐸𝑖𝑖

+ 𝐸𝐸𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖
𝐸𝐸𝑖𝑖

2
𝑖𝑖

× 𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖  −  �

𝐸𝐸𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖
𝐸𝐸𝑖𝑖

+ 𝐸𝐸𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖
𝐸𝐸𝑖𝑖

2
𝑖𝑖

× 𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 

𝐶𝐶𝑒𝑒𝐹𝐹𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐹𝐹𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐹𝐹 𝐹𝐹𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸𝑒𝑒 𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸 = �
𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 + 𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖

2
𝑖𝑖

×
𝐸𝐸𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖
𝐸𝐸𝑖𝑖

 −  �
𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 + 𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖

2
𝑖𝑖

×
𝐸𝐸𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖
𝐸𝐸𝑖𝑖

 

where CFR is the completed fertility rate, n is the population, i is education category, and 𝐸𝐸 and 𝑏𝑏 are 
the two populations being compared. For any two populations in this simple decomposition the 
difference between completed fertility rates is attributed to fertility or education composition, with 
these two components adding up to 100 per cent.  

4. Results 

4.1. Change in completed fertility 

As expected, due to the rise of education for women in the recent past, the educational composition 
of women in these cohorts is dramatically different (Figure 3). The major change in education has 
been a decline in the proportion of women who only completed Year 10 or below, from 30 per cent 
among the 1952-56 cohort to 10 per cent in the youngest cohort. In turn there has been a 
corresponding increase in women who have a Bachelor’s degree, from 13 per cent in the earliest 
cohort to 23 in the latest cohort. Those with complete high school (Year 12) rose slightly, as did all 
categories of post-school qualification, except basic vocational. 

Completed fertility has also changed across successive cohorts of women. Overall, completed fertility 
has fallen from 2.23 in the 1952-56 cohort to 1.97 in the 1972-76 cohort. Figure 4 shows how 
completed fertility has changed across the cohorts by education level. At higher levels of education 
completed fertility has declined more or less steadily, whereas for Year 11 and Year 10 or below, 
after a decline in the middle cohorts, we see a rise again in fertility for the most recent cohort. For 
example, for Year 10, completed fertility fell from 2.44 among the 1952-56 cohort to 2.34 for women 
born in 1962-66. It then increased again to 2.43 for the 1972-76 cohort. This change of fertility for 
women in the lowest education categories are aligned with the dramatic decline of women in these 
education categories suggesting that the underlying composition of these groups has changed over 
time. 

  



Australian Population Studies 3 (2) 2019 Gray & Evans 7 

 

 

Graduate or post 
graduate Bachelors 

Diploma or 
advanced 
diploma 

Higher 
certificate 

Basic 
vocational Year 12 Year 11 

Year 10 or 
below 

 
  

  

 

 

 

Figure 3: Percentage distribution of women by highest level of education and birth cohort 

Source: ABS 2019 – authors’ calculations 

 

Graduate or post 
graduate Bachelors 

Diploma or 
advanced 
diploma 

Higher 
certificate 

Basic 
vocational Year 12 Year 11 

Year 10 or 
below 

  

 
  

  
 

Figure 4: Completed fertility by highest level of education and birth cohort 

Source: ABS 2019 – authors’ calculations 

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

52
-5

6
57

-6
1

62
-6

6
67

-7
1

72
-7

6

Pe
rc

en
ta

ge

52
-5

6
57

-6
1

62
-6

6
67

-7
1

72
-7

6

52
-5

6
57

-6
1

62
-6

6
67

-7
1

72
-7

6

1.4

1.6

1.8

2.0

2.2

2.4

52
-5

6
57

-6
1

62
-6

6
67

-7
1

72
-7

6

Co
m

pl
et

ed
 fe

rt
ili

ty

52
-5

6
57

-6
1

62
-6

6
67

-7
1

72
-7

6

52
-5

6
57

-6
1

62
-6

6
67

-7
1

72
-7

6

52
-5

6
57

-6
1

62
-6

6
67

-7
1

72
-7

6

52
-5

6
57

-6
1

62
-6

6
67

-7
1

72
-7

6

52
-5

6
57

-6
1

62
-6

6
67

-7
1

72
-7

6

52
-5

6
57

-6
1

62
-6

6
67

-7
1

72
-7

6

52
-5

6
57

-6
1

62
-6

6
67

-7
1

72
-7

6

52
-5

6
57

-6
1

62
-6

6
67

-7
1

72
-7

6

52
-5

6
57

-6
1

62
-6

6
67

-7
1

72
-7

6

52
-5

6
57

-6
1

62
-6

6
67

-7
1

72
-7

6

52
-5

6
57

-6
1

62
-6

6
67

-7
1

72
-7

6

52
-5

6
57

-6
1

62
-6

6
67

-7
1

72
-7

6

Cohort 

Cohort 



8 Gray & Evans Australian Population Studies 3 (2) 2019 

 
The pattern of change in completed total fertility from the 1952-56 cohort to the 1972-76 cohort is 
shown in Figure 5. Figure 5 also shows the contribution to completed fertility according to the 
women’s highest level of education. Not only did completed total fertility decline across the cohorts 
but the contribution by each category also changed. Most notably the contribution of completed 
fertility by women with Year 10 or below schooling declined, whereas the contribution to completed 
fertility by women with a Bachelor’s degree increased. The contribution of an education level to 
completed total fertility can decline if the proportion of women in that category decreases, or their 
completed fertility rate decreases, or both. In the next section we decompose the change in 
completed fertility rate to these two factors: compositional change in education categories and 
actual change in fertility within education categories. 

 
Figure 5: Relative contribution of education categories to overall completed fertility, by cohort 
Source: ABS 2019 – authors’ calculations 

4.2. Decomposing fertility rates and educational composition 

With this decomposition we can separately identify changes in completed fertility attributable to 
changes in the educational distribution as well as changes in fertility within each educational group. 
If, over time, the proportion of women in different educational groups changed but the completed 
fertility within each group remained the same then changes in total completed fertility would be 100 
per cent due to changes in education composition. Similarly, if the educational composition stayed 
the same, but fertility changed within the education groups, then 100 per cent of change in overall 
fertility could be attributed to fertility rate changes. 

The decomposition of completed fertility by cohort is shown in Table 2. Comparing the 1952-56 
cohort with the 1957-61 cohort we see a decline of 0.07 children, from 2.23 to 2.16. Of this decline, 
72 per cent can be attributed to changes in fertility rates and 28 per cent to changes in educational 
composition. Comparing the 1962-66 cohort with the 1957-61 cohort, there is a decline of 0.08 in 
completed fertility from 2.16 to 2.08. This decline was primarily due to declines in fertility across all 
education groups, with only 15 per cent attributable to changes in the composition of women across 
education categories. For the next two cohorts, completed fertility declined by 0.06 and this was 

0.00

0.50

1.00

1.50

2.00

1952-1956 1957-61 1962-66 1967-71 1972-76

Co
m

pl
et

ed
 fe

rt
ili

ty

Year 10 or below

Year 11

Year 12

Basic vocational

Higher certificate

Diploma or advanced diploma

Bachelors

Graduate or post graduate



Australian Population Studies 3 (2) 2019 Gray & Evans 9 

 

 

attributable fairly evenly due to declines in fertility and changes in the composition across education 
categories. The majority of the decline between the two most recent cohorts is attributable to 
changes in the composition across education categories. 

Table 2: Decomposition of completed fertility 

    Change attributable to:   
Completed 
fertility of 

cohort 

Completed 
fertility of 

previous cohort 

Difference Fertility rate 
effect  

(%) 

Composition 
effect 
 (%) 

1952-56 2.23 -    
1957-61 2.16 2.23 -0.07 72 28 
1962-66 2.08 2.16 -0.08 85 15 
1967-71 2.02 2.08 -0.06 53 47 
1972-76 1.97 2.02 -0.05 31 70 

Total 
(1952-57 to 1972-61) 

  -0.26 56 44 

Source: ABS 2019 – authors’ calculations 

Next we look in more detail at how fertility and education composition contributed to the decline in 
completed fertility between the cohorts. For each education category, Figure 6 shows the effect on 
fertility of the changing proportion of women in that education category (proportion), and the 
changing fertility (rate) within each education group. The corresponding table can be found in the 
Appendix.  

For example, as seen above, between the 1952-57 and 1957-61 cohorts completed cohort fertility 
declined by 0.07. Between these two cohorts the education composition of women changed, and the 
fertility of women within education categories also changed. For these cohorts, the increase in the 
proportion of women with a Graduate diploma, Masters or PhD contributed 0.013 to the difference 
in overall cohort fertility. The decline of fertility among women with a post-graduate degree 
contributed to -0.006, leading to an overall positive impact of 0.007. If we add up all the positive and 
negative effects of composition and fertility within each of the education categories it equals -0.07. 

For the two highest levels of educational attainment, Postgraduate and Bachelor, between every 
cohort comparison there was a positive effect on overall completed fertility due to increasing 
proportion of women with these degrees but a negative effect due to declining fertility in these 
education categories. However, the negative influence of declining fertility within the education 
categories was not large enough to offset the positive impact of increasing proportion of women 
with degrees leading to an overall positive effect on fertility. The increasing proportion of women 
with a Bachelor’s degree had a particularly positive effect on completed fertility for the most recent 
cohorts, and the offsetting negative effect in the fertility rate among women with a Bachelor’s 
degree was only minor in comparison. As a result, between the 1962-66 and 1967-71 cohort, women 
with a Bachelor’s degree contributed 0.059 to the difference between overall completed fertility. The 
Diploma level had a negligible effect on differences in fertility over time, as did Certificate I and IV. 
For Certificate III and IV initially the increasing composition of women in the oldest cohorts had a 
positive effect, but in the in later cohorts the effect was minor.  



10 Gray & Evans Australian Population Studies 3 (2) 2019 

 

  

  

  

  

 

Figure 6: Decomposition by cohort and detailed education categories 

Source: ABS 2019 – authors’ calculations (full results in Appendix)  



Australian Population Studies 3 (2) 2019 Gray & Evans 11 

 

 

For Year 12 the increasing composition coupled with very little change in their fertility rate led to an 
overall positive, though small, contribution to changes in completed fertility. For Year 11 an 
interesting pattern emerges. For the early cohorts there was an increasing proportion of women in 
Year 11 and a small but declining rate of fertility. In the most recent cohorts this switched and the 
proportion with Year 11 declined, but the fertility of women with Year 11 education increased. The 
overall impact on fertility was negative for the most recent cohorts. For Year 10 we see the strongest 
effect of proportion and fertility rate. For each cohort comparison, the declining proportion in this 
education category had the effect of decreasing completed fertility. Among the older cohorts in this 
group fertility also declined but in the younger cohorts it increased. 

5. Conclusions 

For older cohorts of Australian women, attaining a degree was a rare occurrence and it was unusual 
to combine work and family. Today the proportion of women with a degree has increased 
dramatically, and women with a degree are no longer such a selective group. One might therefore 
expect that the negative gradient between education and fertility would have weakened over time. 
In Australia, we found no evidence of this. Instead, as in Britain, we find large and widening 
educational differences. The increasingly large proportion of women with university degrees are still 
experiencing declining fertility while women with Year 11 or below schooling appear to have become 
an increasingly small and select proportion of the population with increasing fertility rates. These are 
also women with the lowest investment in human capital and the most precarious attachment to the 
labour force. In terms of the institutional support for women wanting to combine work and 
childbearing, Australia still lags behind many European and Scandinavian countries (Heard and 
Arunachalam 2015). The continued barriers to combining motherhood and work for educated 
women is likely one explanation for why in Australia we continue to see educational differences in 
fertility. 

In terms of the effect overall, we find that for older cohorts the primary component of change in 
completed fertility was declining fertility. In the most recent cohort there is evidence that a 
composition effect due to changing educational trends is now the primary driver of declining fertility. 
In particular, the impact of the growing group of women with a Bachelor’s degree and the shrinking 
proportion of women who have not completed high school reflects the growth in higher education 
enrolment shown in Figure 2.  

Using detailed education categories also enables us to capture the differences between high and low 
education. We find large differences in the pattern of fertility between the Year 12, Year 11 and Year 
10 or below-groups which are often grouped together in other studies as ‘no post school 
qualification’. While Year 12 followed the same composition and rate trend as the Bachelor’s level 
(increasing composition, declining fertility), the incomplete secondary groups were very different 
signalling an increasing marginalisation of women with very low levels of education.  

It is important to note that we use highest completed level of education at the time of the Census as 
our indicator of educational attainment. This anticipatory approach could possibly lead to a bias in 
the estimates of the educational gradient as the attainment of the highest level of education may 
change across the reproductive life course and may have occurred after childbearing (Hoem and 



12 Gray & Evans Australian Population Studies 3 (2) 2019 

 
Kreyenfield 2006). In addition, because we include women up to the age of 64 the results presented 
may also be biased by differential mortality to the extent that mortality varies by education (Hoem 
and Kreyenfield 2006). 

Australia has one of the highest levels of tertiary education completion in the world. Nearly 50 per 
cent of young adults (25-34 year-olds) in Australia have attained a tertiary qualification, one of the 
highest across OECD countries and considerably above the OECD average of 43 per cent. Given the 
significant increase in education, and the continued rising levels of education for women, future 
national fertility levels will in large part be determined by the childbearing of the increasingly large 
proportion of women with higher education (Heard and Arunchalam 2015). It is difficult to predict 
whether these differences will continue to diverge or whether they will follow European trends and 
begin to narrow. This will largely depend on the childbearing patterns of the increasingly select group 
who do not complete high-school, and the fertility of those with university degrees. Both can be 
significantly influenced by supportive family policy. 

Key messages  

• Australia has seen a widespread increase in the level of education of women, and a 
corresponding decrease in completed fertility. 

• Decomposition analysis allows a separation of the components of fertility decline into two parts: 
decline due to a change in the composition of education categories, and decline due to changes 
in fertility rates of cohorts. 

• For older cohorts, most of the decline is due to declining fertility rates. For the youngest cohort, 
the decline is due to changing education composition. 

• Focussing on the different education levels provides additional insight into fertility change by 
level of education. Incomplete secondary schooling has a declining effect on completed fertility 
while tertiary education has a substantial and growing contribution on the change in completed 
fertility. 

• Overall, the gap between completed fertility by highest level of education is growing. 

Acknowledgements 

The 2016 Australian Census data for this paper were made available by the Australian Bureau of 
Statistics through their TableBuilder product. This research is funded by the Australian Research 
Council (ARC) (DP150104248). We would like to gratefully acknowledge the helpful comments 
provided by two referees and to thank Anna Reimondos for research assistance. 

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Appendix  

Table A: Detailed decomposition of change in completed fertility due to composition and due to fertility rate, 
by highest level of education 

    Cohort 

    1952-56 to 
1957-61 

1957-61 to 
1962-66 

1962-66 to 
1967-71 

1967-71 to 
1972-76 

Graduate diploma, 
Masters or PhD 

Composition effect 0.013 0.008 0.02 0.022 

Fertility rate effect -0.006 -0.006 -0.002 -0.005 

  Total effect 0.007 0.002 0.018 0.017 

Bachelor 
Composition effect 0.028 0.021 0.064 0.089 

Fertility rate effect -0.008 -0.012 -0.005 -0.01 

  Total effect 0.02 0.009 0.059 0.079 

Diploma or Advanced 
Diploma 

Composition effect 0.025 0.011 0.016 0.001 

Fertility rate effect -0.005 -0.011 -0.009 -0.009 

  Total effect 0.02 0.00 0.007 -0.008 

Certificate III or IV 
Composition effect 0.054 0.036 0.008 -0.002 

Fertility rate effect -0.004 -0.009 -0.009 -0.008 

  Total effect 0.05 0.027 -0.001 -0.01 

Certificate I or II 
Composition effect 0.005 0.001 -0.008 0.00 

Fertility rate effect -0.003 -0.003 -0.002 0.00 

  Total effect 0.002 -0.002 -0.01 0.00 

Year 12 
Composition effect 0.018 0.012 0.023 0.027 

Fertility rate effect -0.004 -0.004 -0.005 -0.001 

  Total effect 0.014 0.008 0.018 0.026 

Year 11 or equivalent 
Composition effect 0.01 0.009 -0.02 -0.039 

Fertility rate effect -0.002 -0.002 0.001 0.005 

  Total effect 0.008 0.007 -0.019 -0.034 

Year 10 or below 
Composition effect -0.147 -0.091 -0.115 -0.126 

Fertility rate effect -0.011 -0.014 0.001 0.011 

  Total effect -0.158 -0.105 -0.114 -0.115 

Not stated 
Composition effect -0.026 -0.019 -0.014 -0.01 

Fertility rate effect -0.006 -0.007 -0.002 0.00 

  Total effect -0.032 -0.026 -0.016 -0.01 

  Column total -0.07 -0.08 -0.06 -0.05 

 


	Abstract
	Background
	Aims
	Data and methods
	The study uses 2016 Census data on the number of children ever born of five cohorts of women born between 1952 and 1976. Decomposition is used to distinguish the effects of the two components.
	Results
	The educational composition of women in these cohorts is dramatically different, with an increasing number of women having completed tertiary education in later cohorts. Completed fertility has also changed across successive cohorts. We find that for ...
	Conclusions
	Despite tertiary education becoming much more common, fertility within this group remains lower than other education groups. While other countries have seen a narrowing of the gap in fertility rates between education groups, this pattern is not found ...
	Key words
	Education; fertility; fertility decline; children ever born; Census; decomposition.
	3. Data and Methods
	Key messages
	Acknowledgements
	References

