The effects of education, income, and child mortality on fertility in South Africa

I analyze the effects of mothers7 education, household income, and child mortality on completed fertility in South Ahca, using the 1993 South Ahca Integrated Household Survey. I estimate an individual fertility choice model using an OLS, a 2SLS, and a Poisson model. The 2SLS model accounts for the endogeneity of education, income, and child mortality; and the Poisson model accounts for the fact that fertility is a non-negative count variable. The point estimates are different enough between the three models to suggest that fertility should be estimated with a model that accounts for both fertility being a non-negative count variable and the explanatory variables being endogenous. My results are broadly consistent with the literature on determinants of fertility rates in developing countries.