The more time someone remains in school, the more likely it is to delay their marriage, but education does not reduce the general probability of marrying later in life, according to our research recently published in Education Economics. Education also influences who Americans marry: obtaining a four -year title instead of only a high school diploma far as the probability that someone married a colleague graduated from the university.
Previous research has documented that the more education you are, the more likely you will have to marry. But correlation does not imply causality, and many other factors influence marriage and education.
My research with economist Kunwon AHN provides evidence that, in fact, there is a causal link between education and marriage, but it is a nuanced.
Our study applies economic theory and advanced statistics to a sample of 2006-2019 of the American community survey: more than 8 million people, whom we divide into different cohorts according to the place of birth, the year of birth and self-informed ancestry.
To isolate the causal relationship, we needed to avoid other factors that can influence a person’s decisions about marriage and education. Therefore, the calculation was not carried out depending on the educational level of individuals. Instead, we estimate its educational level using an indicator: the level of education of their mothers. At the individual level, many people end more or less education than their parents. However, within a cohort, the amount of schooling that mothers have, on average, is a strong predictor of how much education the children of that cohort received.
We discovered that an additional year of schooling, counting from the first grade to the end of any postgraduate degree, reduces the probability that someone from 25 to 34 years is married in approximately 4 percentage points.
Among the older groups, the effects of education were more varied. On average, the level of education has an almost null impact on the probability that someone from 45 to 54 years is married. Among the people who were married to that age, having a higher educational level reduces their probability of divorcing or separating.
However, greater education also makes people have a little more likely to never have married at that age. In our sample, about 12% of people in that age group have never married. An additional year of education increases, on average, by 2.6 percentage points.
Why is it important?
Marriage rates are in historical minimums in the United States, especially among young people. Before 1970, more than 80% of Americans aged 25 to 34 were married. By 2023, that number had fallen to only 38%, according to data from the US Census Office.
At the same time, the percentage of Americans with a university degree has increased considerably. Additional education can increase someone’s income potential and turn it into a more attractive couple.
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However, the growing costs of higher education can make marriage less attainable. A 2016 study found that the more university debt had someone, the less likely he had to marry.
While marriage rates have decreased in all areas, the fall is more pronounced for lower income groups, and not all the gap is due to education. Another cause can be the decrease in the labor perspectives of low -income men. In recent decades, as its income potential has decreased and women’s work options have grown, it seems that some of the economic benefits of marriage have decreased.
The decrease in marriage rates has important effects on people, families and society as a whole. Many people value the institution by themselves, and others assign importance based on religious, cultural and social values. From the economic point of view, marriage has important consequences for children, such as the number of children who have people and resources that can invest in them.
What is not yet known
Education levels are only part of the explanation of trends in marriage rates. It is likely that other cultural, social, economic and technological factors are involved in the general decline, but their exact contribution is still unknown.
An idea that is gaining followers, although few research has been conducted in this regard, considers the ways in which smartphones and social networks can be reducing psychological and social well -being. We stay more at home, we leave less and we are increasingly divided, all of which could make people less prone to marry.
*John V. Winters is a professor of Economics at Iowa State University.
This article was originally published in The Conversation/Reuters
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