ABSTRACT
Moving beyond the strictly economic benefits of reduced fertility, analysts point to the greater ability of women to control their own lives (especially through increased “bargaining power” within households), to the way in which more educated and healthier youth provide greater social stability, and to the potentially positive environmental implications associated with the pressure of fewer people. Related to many of these implications of reduced fertility, children in smaller families generally have wider, freer life choices. Through all these paths, education affects the distribution of well-being in a society, not just its amount, and there are inevitably competing perspectives in societies concerning such social change. We should not underestimate, for example, the challenges that change of this type pose to the traditional dominance of men and therefore to cultural patterns of millennia.
