Sir! I’d Rather Go to School, Sir!

Conscription remains a prevalent method of military recruitment in many developing countries, yet its broader consequences are underresearched in these contexts. This study leverages a unique exemption rule in Iran—where sole sons were spared from conscription once their fathers reached age 59—to estimate the causal effect of conscription on educational decisions. Using a regression discontinuity design, it shows that sole sons just below the 59 cutoff attended college at rates 14 percentage points (24%) higher than their counterparts, effectively postponing conscription until their fathers reached 59. Robustness checks confirm that the exemption law drives these results. Because admission to college is both competitive and expensive—households typically spent 1.5 times per capita gross domestic product in a single year to improve their children’s chances—sole sons incur substantial burdens to avoid conscription. These findings shed new light on the unintended effects of conscription policies.