Educational differences and changing reproductive trajectories across three family generations of women in Peru

This study examines how educational expansion shapes reproductive trajectories across three generations of Peruvian women. Using Peru’s Demographic and Health Surveys (1986–2022) and biographical interviews with 66 women from 22 family triads, we integrate quantitative and qualitative approaches to reveal complex education-fertility relationships. Five key patterns emerge: educational expansion with fertility postponement, early fertility persisting despite educational gains, increased reproductive agency, evolving responses to reproductive vulnerability and changing life course sequences. While statistical analysis confirms the existence of educational gradients in fertility, biographical data show how structural constraints, cultural models and family dynamics mediate educational effects. The multigenerational Ageven matrix methodology visualises temporal dimensions that are invisible in aggregate statistics. The findings challenge assumptions about education-fertility relationships by showing how demographic transitions operate through family lineages in which educational gains coexist with persistent early childbearing patterns shaped by violence, economic precarity and constrained choices.