Despite substantial improvements in women's education, the age at which Latin American women marry (cohabit) or become mothers for the first time has barely decreased over the past four decades. We refer to this as the "stability paradox." We examine the relationship between years of schooling and transitions to first union or child, analyzing retrospective information from 50 cohorts of women born between 1940 and 1989 in 12 Latin American countries. Absolute and relative measures of schooling are compared. Data is drawn from 38 Demographic Health Surveys (DHS) conducted between 1986 and 2012 in these countries. Results show that expected postponement in family transitions due to educational expansion was offset by a rise in union formation and childbearing within strata of absolute education, but stayed approximately constant within strata of relative education. The relative measure of education retains the stratifying power of education but neutralizes any effect attached to a specific number of years of schooling and the learning skills associated with them. This is consistent with the idea that access to education in Latin America reproduces existing patterns of socioeconomic advantage, rather than creating a more equitable distribution of learning opportunities and outcomes.
La revista Notas de Población es una publicación del Centro Latinoamericano y Caribeño de Demografía (CELADE)-División de Población de la CEPAL, cuyo propósito principal es la difusión de investigaciones y estudios de población sobre América Latina y el Caribe, aun cuando recibe con particular interés artículos de especialistas de fuera de la región y, en algunos casos, contribuciones que se refieren a otras regiones del mundo. Se publica dos veces al año, con una orientación interdisciplinaria, por lo que acoge tanto artículos sobre demografía propiamente tal como otros que aborden las relaciones entre las tendencias demográficas y los fenómenos económicos, sociales y biológicos. Las opiniones expresadas en esta revista son responsabilidad de los autores y pueden no coincidir con las del Centro Latinoamericano y Caribeño de Demografía (CELADE)-División de Población de la CEPAL. La revista Notas de Población está indizada en Citas Latinoamericanas en Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades (CLASE) y en el Sistema Regional de Información en Línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina, el Caribe, España y Portugal (LATINDEX).
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.