The timing of first marriage and subsequent life outcomes: Evidence from a natural experiment

We study the consequences of later marriage on subsequent life outcomes. China’s family planning policies in the early 1970s – before the One-Child Policy – regulated not only childbirth but also marriage. The recommended minimum marriage age of 25 years for men and 23 years for women was effectively relaxed when the government formally introduced the One-Child Policy and put greater emphasis on directly controlling fertility rather than marriage. Subsequently, we find that the marriage age, which had been increasing steadily since 1970, suddenly started to decline in the early 1980s. This policy shift provides us with an opportunity to apply a regression probability jump and kink design for the purpose of identification. Using data from the 2000 census, we establish that later-married men have fewer children and that later-married women are more likely to participate in the labor market. We find no consistent evidence that later marriage improves education, probably because most Chinese people marry after completing their education.