Prior research shows that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women are more likely to have children and have more children, on average, than non‐Indigenous women. However, like those of the total Australian population, fertility rates of Indigenous women have been declining since the 1970s. The decline has been more significant in recent years. Between 2006 and 2016, an increasing proportion of Indigenous women postponed childbirth from their teens into their 20s and 30s, leading women to have fewer children over their lifetimes. During the same period, there was a rapid increase in educational attainment among the Indigenous population. This paper examines educational gradients in fertility among Indigenous women and whether the observed fertility decline is linked with the increased educational attainment. Using data from the 2006, 2011 and 2016 Australian Census of Population and Housing and applying a shift‐share decomposition analysis, we find that education has been a big driver of falling fertility rates in non‐remote areas. In remote areas, education has had a much smaller effect (except for youngest women).

中文翻译：

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受教育程度的提高可以解释土著生育力下降吗？

先前的研究表明，与非土著妇女相比，土著妇女和托雷斯海峡岛民妇女平均更有可能生育子女，并且生育的子女人数更多。但是，与澳大利亚总人口一样，土著妇女的生育率自1970年代以来一直在下降。近年来，下降幅度更大。在2006年至2016年期间，越来越多的土著妇女将其生育年龄从十几岁推迟到20多岁和30多岁，这导致妇女一生中的子女数量减少。在同一时期，土著人口的教育程度迅速提高。本文研究了土著妇女生育能力的教育梯度，以及观察到的生育率下降是否与受教育程度的提高有关。使用2006年的数据，2011年和2016年《澳大利亚人口与住房普查》并应用了变动份额分解分析，我们发现教育一直是非偏远地区生育率下降的主要驱动力。在偏远地区，教育的作用要小得多（最年轻的妇女除外）。