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The impact of school entry laws on female education and teenage fertility

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  • Poh Lin Tan

    (National University of Singapore)

Abstract

The literature on school entry laws in the USA suggests that school entry laws affect educational success in offsetting ways, where students born after the entry cutoff date tend to achieve higher test scores yet complete fewer years of schooling. However, the laws have little impact on a number of other outcomes, including fertility, wages, and employment. This paper has two goals. First, using a North Carolina dataset which individually links birth certificate data to school administrative records, it more fully explores the opposite impacts on educational success than previous papers and investigates why students born after the cutoff date have lower educational attainment despite doing better in school. Second, it investigates the impact of school entry laws on teenage fertility and provides some evidence that test scores and years of education have negative impacts, but that these impacts offset each other in the case of school entry laws.

Suggested Citation

  • Poh Lin Tan, 2017. "The impact of school entry laws on female education and teenage fertility," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 30(2), pages 503-536, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:jopoec:v:30:y:2017:i:2:d:10.1007_s00148-016-0609-9
    DOI: 10.1007/s00148-016-0609-9
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    Cited by:

    1. Josefine Koebe & Jan Marcus, 2020. "The Impact of the Length of Schooling on the Timing of Family Formation," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1896, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    2. Schaffner, Sandra & Siebert-Meyerhoff, Andrea, 2017. "The effect of schooling age on fertility," Ruhr Economic Papers 741, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    3. Anna Adamecz-Völgyi & Ágota Scharle, 2020. "Books or babies? The incapacitation effect of schooling on minority women," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 33(4), pages 1219-1261, October.
    4. Marcus, Jan, 2022. "The Length of Schooling and the Timing of Family Formation," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 68(1), pages 1-45.
    5. Michael Bahrs & Mathias Schumann, 2020. "Unlucky to be young? The long-term effects of school starting age on smoking behavior and health," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 33(2), pages 555-600, April.
    6. Huang, Cheng & Zhang, Shiying & Zhao, Qingguo, 2020. "The early bird catches the worm? School entry cutoff and the timing of births," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    7. Hieu T. M. Nguyen & Blane D. Lewis, 2020. "Teenage Marriage and Motherhood in Vietnam: The Negative Effects of Starting School Early," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 39(4), pages 739-762, August.
    8. Pablo A. Celhay & Emilio Depetris-Chauvin & Cristina Riquelme, 2023. "When a Strike Strikes Twice: Massive Student Mobilizations and Teenage Pregnancy in Chile," Working Papers 267, Red Nacional de Investigadores en Economía (RedNIE).
    9. Humlum, Maria Knoth & Kristoffersen, Jannie H.G. & Vejlin, Rune, 2017. "College admissions decisions, educational outcomes, and family formation," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 215-230.
    10. Peña, Pablo A., 2020. "Relative age and investment in human capital," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    11. Johansen, Eva Rye, 2021. "Relative age for grade and adolescent risky health behavior," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Education; Teenage fertility; Quasi-experimental; Season of birth;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • J18 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Public Policy
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

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