Dissertation Research: Schooling and Population Growth in Cameroom

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Throughout the developing world, educated women bear fewer children, and bear them later than do uneducated women. Demographic modernization theory proposes that schooling itself induces women to bear fewer children; this project suggests instead that cumulative processes of selection over the life course produce the observed correlation. Selection includes both intentional choices and the structural contexts in which people make choices. This dissertation project involves an anthropology student from Northwestern University, studying how processes of selection into and out of a Catholic school in Cameroon, Africa, influence the life-historical moment at which a woman bears her first child. The project will collect demographic event histories and conduct open ended life history interviews with students and former students of a private secondary school. The parents will be interviewed about socialization and schooling choices for their children, and preadolescent girls will be interviewed about their aspirations for school, career and family. Finally the student will conduct participant observation at the school itself to understand the social organization of the school and its effect on the student's perceived opportunities. This research is important because it will advance our understanding of a key relationship affecting population growth in the developing world, as well as contribute to the training of young social scientist and advancing our expertise about this important region of the world.