Key Social Norms Take-aways Gender attitudes and fertility preferences are interconnected, but this relationship depends on the broader social and structural context. As women’s education expands and egalitarian gender attitudes diffuse, young women who reject patriarchal attitudes increasingly diverge from prevailing high-fertility norms. In low-education settings, however, even women with more egalitarian attitudes may continue to express high fertility preferences because structural constraints, community expectations, and the social value placed on motherhood limit opportunities to depart from prevailing norms.

Objectives The study examined how the association between gender attitudes—specifically attitudes toward wife beating—and desired fertility changed over approximately 15 years among adolescent girls and young women aged 15–24 in Ethiopia, Malawi, Mali, Nigeria, and Zambia, and whether national levels of women’s education moderated this relationship.

Methods The study analyzed nationally representative Demographic and Health Survey data from four successive surveys in each of the five countries, spanning the early 2000s to mid-to-late 2010s. The primary outcome was ideal number of children. Gender attitudes were assessed through five questions asking whether wife beating was justified under different circumstances; respondents endorsing at least one circumstance were classified as tolerant of wife beating. This measure was used as an indicator of gender attitudes and acceptance of gendered power hierarchies. Descriptive statistics and survey-weighted bivariate and multiple linear regression models examined associations within countries and changes across survey rounds. A pooled cross-country model tested whether average years of education among young women moderated the association between gender attitudes and fertility preferences.

Results Tolerance of wife beating declined in all five countries, although the magnitude varied substantially. Women who tolerated wife beating generally desired more children, but the association varied across countries and time. It became stronger and more consistent in Nigeria and Zambia as tolerance declined, while patterns were less consistent in Ethiopia and Mali. Across countries, contextual education significantly moderated the relationship: the association between tolerance of wife beating and higher desired fertility strengthened as average education increased and became consistently significant at approximately 4.5 years of average schooling.

Conclusions Fertility preferences are embedded within broader gender systems rather than reflecting unconstrained individual preferences alone. Expanding women’s education may facilitate changes in gender and fertility norms, but education should be complemented by community-level efforts to transform entrenched patriarchal norms, delegitimize wife beating, and strengthen young women’s reproductive autonomy.