Early fertility is a key barrier to female human capital attainment in sub-Saharan Africa, yet contraceptive take …-up remains puzzlingly low, even among educated populations with healthcare access. We study a barrier to hormonal contraceptive … trial with female undergraduates at the flagship university in Zambia to test two interventions to increase contraceptive …

fertility among minor women, aged 21 or younger, for whom access restrictions were most drastically lifted. We then evaluate how … examining its impact on female fertility control and human capital formation. We find that younger women who grew up in more … liberal areas were much less likely to experience a birth or marriage as a minor, invested more in education, and ended up in …

conservative areas were more likely to delay fertility/marriage and to accumulate human capital in the long run. We then show how …

traditional equilibrium, contraceptives are not used, fertility is high and education and growth are low. At the modern … equilibrium, contraceptives are used, fertility is low and further declining with increasing income, and education and growth are … high. The theory motivates a "wanted fertility reversal": At the traditional equilibrium, men prefer more children than …