What a difference a term makes: the effect of educational attainment on marital outcomes in the UK

Abstract

In the past, students in England and Wales born within the first five months of the academic year could leave school one term earlier than those born later in the year. Focusing on women, those who were required to stay on an extra term more frequently hold some academic qualification. Using having been required to stay on as an exogenous factor affecting academic attainment, we find that holding a low level academic qualification has no effect on the probability of being currently married for women aged 25 or above, but increases the probability of the husband holding some academic qualification and being economically active.

Is Education Always Reducing Fertility? Evidence from Compulsory Schooling Reforms

“…Several studies for Europe and the US (Kalmijn (), Isen and Stevenson ()) confirm that a previously negative relation between education and marriage changed sign over time: now the relationship is mostly positive. In addition, Anderberg and Zhu () studying English women born in the 1950–70s using month of birth as IV for education, found no relationship between qualifications and marriage probabilities.…”

“…Several studies for Europe and the US (Kalmijn (2013), Isen and Stevenson (2010)) confirm that a previously negative relation between education and marriage changed sign over time: now the relationship is mostly positive. In addition, Anderberg and Zhu (2014) studying English women born in the 1950-70s using month of birth as IV for education, found no relationship between qualifications and marriage probabilities. Isen and Stevenson (2010) claim that their observed shift of a negative educationmarriage correlation to a positive one in the US may be due to a shift from a production-based concept to a consumption-based concept of marriage.…”

Student loans or marriage? A look at the highly educated

“…6 Educational attainment and marriage decisions may jointly reflect exogenous changes in the cost of investing in human capital. 7 Particularly for women, some researchers observe a negative correlation between entry into marriage and educational attainment ( Isen & Stevenson, 2010;Long, 2010 ) or school enrollment ( Thornton, Axinn, & Teachman, 1995 ), but using compulsory schooling laws to instrument for educational attainment, Lefgren and McIntyre (2006) and Anderberg and Zhu (2014) do not find a strong effect of educational attainment on the probability of marriage among women, respectively, in the U.S. or in England and Wales. However, the connection between the timing of marriage and graduate or professional education has not been explored much in the literature.…”

What determines the return to education: An extra year or a hurdle cleared?

“…Anderberg and Zhu (2010) use it to estimate the effect for women of holding academic qualifications on the probability of being married and on the probability of the husband holding qualifications and being economically active. Closer to our study, Del Galindo-Rueda (2004, 2006) Del Bono and Galindo-Rueda explicitly focus on cohorts born after the 1973 reform in order to abstract from the effects of raising the school leaving age.…”