Fertility and Educational Attainment in Slovenia

Abstract

In the course of the 20th century, Slovenia completed its transition from high to low fertility as most European countries had. This trend was also accompanied by a rise in a level of education. In this essay, the author investigates the relationship between completed fertility and educational attainment in Slovenia over a longer period of time. At first, she provides the reader with demographic overview of the relationship between fertility and women’s educational attainment for birth cohorts of women born in the first six decades of the 20th century. Afterwards, she identifies various subgroups of women with different levels of educational attainment in order to interpret some prospects of women with tertiary education and their fertility levels. The data used are from the population censuses, conducted in the second half of the 20th century and in 2002. Special attention is given to the most recent birth cohorts for whom information on fertility levels of women with different educational attainment is enriched by information on their marital status, economic status, occupation, religiosity, ethnic affiliation and housing. Cohort analysis was chosen to study differential fertility over a longer period of time. The analysis focuses on the intensity (quantum) and not the timing (tempo) of fertility of different groups and subgroups of women, defined by educational attainment and some additional characteristics.