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The (non) impact of education on marital dissolution

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  • Edith Aguirre

Abstract

Despite the relevant role attributed to education on marital outcomes, literature does not show a generalized consensus regarding a positive or negative effect from education on marital decisions. In this paper I investigate the impact of education on marriage dissolution exploiting a change in the length of compulsory education in Mexico in 1993 as an instrument for education. The federal government increased compulsory education from completion of primary school, sixth grade, to completion of secondary school, ninth grade, at a national level. In the first part of the analysis, the probit models reveal that education is significant and negatively related to the probability of marital breakdown. An additional year of education is associated with a decrease between 0.6 and 0.9 percentage points in the probability of marital disruption for the 2002-2012 period. However, the results using the instrumental variables methodology indicate that an additional year of schooling has no effect on the probability of marriage dissolution. This finding demonstrates that the relationship between education and divorce is not causal and suggests that although higher levels of education are an undeniable trait observed in non-broken marriages, it is not education by itself one of the mechanisms leading to better marriage outcomes.

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  • Edith Aguirre, 2019. "The (non) impact of education on marital dissolution," Discussion Papers 19/15, Department of Economics, University of York.
    • Handle: RePEc:yor:yorken:19/15
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Education; Instrumental Variables; Mexico.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure
    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • C26 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Instrumental Variables (IV) Estimation

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