This paper examines the role of women’s education on fertility and child health in Uganda.
To identify causal effects, I exploit the timing of a national reform that eliminated primary
school fees in 1997 to implement a regression discontinuity design. Women with more schooling
both delay and reduce overall fertility, increase early child health investments, and have less
chronically malnourished children. In terms of mechanisms, education increases wealth as well
as knowledge and practice of family planning, particularly when women are young. Schooling
also delays marriage, but does not appear to alter who women marry or more general bargaining
power within the household.