While macro-level data display these relationships very clearly, micro-level data—especially in India—suggest more caution in attributing the differences in health and fertility behaviour of young women directly to their schooling, or to the autonomy of young women. In India, since the early 1990s, fertility and post-neo-natal mortality have both declined as much (if not more) among the families of mothers with little or no schooling as among those with 8 or 10 years of schooling (the threshold, or minimum number of years of schooling before enhanced autonomy and decision-making abilities are reliably observable) (Bhat 2002). In addition, in the third.
