Women’s Empowerment and Fertility in Tanzania

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of women’s empowerment on fertility in the Tanzania context. It studies both ideal and actual number of children born. Initial expectations are that more empowered women are more able to adjust their actual level of fertility to their desired fertility. My findings do not support this. In fact, I find that women’s empowerment -- defined in this paper as domestic decision-making ability, being less exposed to domestic violence, and education-- strongly reduces desired fertility level, but has a weaker effect on actual fertility and could thus have a positive effect on the gap between the two. . The weaker effect of women’s empowerment on actual fertility is very likely due to the limited accessibility to other important resources, such as family planning services. To allow empowered women to actually reach their desired fertility targets, there needs to be complementary public investments in family planning services.