Timing of College Enrollment and Family Formation Decisions

It is likely that the extent of progression in the educational system a effects whether or not one decides to start a family at a given point in time. We estimate the effect of enrolling in college in the year of application on later family formation decisions such as the probability of being a parent at a certain age. Using college admission data, we nd that individuals who are above the grade requirement for their preferred college program are more likely to enroll in college in a given year. Employing an IV strategy based on this idea, we nd that delays in college enrollment postpone family formation decisions. For example, we nd that the effect of enrolling in college on the probability of being a parent at age 27 is about 9 percentage points, corresponding to an increase of about 70 percent.