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Title: Heterogeneous Effects of College on Family Formation Patterns among Women
Resulting in 1 citation.
1. Brand, Jennie E.
Davis, Dwight R.
Heterogeneous Effects of College on Family Formation Patterns among Women
Presented: Detroit, MI, Population Association of America Annual Meeting, April 2009.
Also: http://paa2009.princeton.edu/download.aspx?submissionId=91835
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Population Association of America
Keyword(s): Educational Attainment; Family Formation; Labor Force Participation; Women's Education

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

We use panel data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY). The NLSY is a nationally representative sample of 12,686 respondents who were 14-22 years old when they were first surveyed in 1979. The NLSY consists of three sub-samples: (1) a crosssectional sample of 6,111 respondents designed to be representative of non-institutionalized civilian 1979 youth; (2) a sample of 5,295 respondents designed to over-sample civilian Hispanic, black and economically disadvantaged 1979 youth; and (3) a sample of 1,280 respondents who were enlisted in the military as of 1978. These individuals were interviewed annually through 1994 and are currently interviewed on a biennial basis. The NLSY has been used extensively for study of access to and the impact of education.

Educational attainment is a significant predictor of womens family formation patterns (Becker 1991; Rindfuss, Bumpass, and St. John 1980; Rindfuss, Morgan, and Offut 1996) and labor force participation (Bianchi 1995). Overall, education delays family formation and increases participation in the labor force. While highly educated women have postponed both marriage and parenthood in recent decades, less-educated women have postponed marriage more than parenthood. As a result, non-marital births have risen dramatically among less-educated women relative to highly educated women. Despite a substantial literature on the effects of education on family formation patterns among women, few studies evaluate potential heterogeneity in these effects. Women's significantly increasing level of educational attainment (Buchman and DiPrete 2006) motivates renewed and careful attention to the impact of education on family formation patterns, particularly among college-educated women who have a low likelihood of college completion. Women at the margin of college completion are those for whom the expansion of higher education exerts its greatest impact.

Bibliography Citation
Brand, Jennie E. and Dwight R. Davis. "Heterogeneous Effects of College on Family Formation Patterns among Women." Presented: Detroit, MI, Population Association of America Annual Meeting, April 2009.