The effect of education on the timing of marriage and first birth in Pakistan

Abstract

A rapid rise in women’s education levels, an increase in the age at marriage and an increase in the age at which they have their first child are key features of demographic transition in any country. Education is considered to be an essential component in this process because increases in educational attainment are likely to significantly affect both age at marriage and the duration between marriage and first birth - in particular increasing both the age at marriage and the time to first child. This paper uses individual level unit record data from Pakistan to examine the effect of education on the age at marriage and on the duration between marriage and first birth. We jointly estimate educational attainment, age at marriage and duration between marriage and first birth allowing for household level unobserved heterogeneity. Our estimation results show that ignoring correlation between the heterogeneity terms in the three main variables of interest results in inconsistent estimates. We find that educated women marry significantly later but education does not have any impact on the duration between marriage and first birth. Show more