The Relationship Between Couples’ Educational Pairings and Fertility: Evidence from Türkiye

This study aims to examine the relationship between couples’ educational pairings and fertility outcomes by using 2018 Türkiye Demographic and Health Survey (TDHS) data and the GPRM model. Our findings show that couples’ educational pairings are closely associated with fertility outcomes. The fertility outcomes differ significantly across the subcategories of educational homogamy, hypergamy, and hypogamy. For homogamous couples, we find that those with medium-medium and high-high educational pairings are less likely to have children than those with low-low educational pairings. Additionally, it is revealed that hypergamous and hypogamous couples with high-medium educational pairings have lower fertility outcomes compared to homogamous couples with low-low educational pairings.