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Sex Differences in Marriage and Parenthood as Factors Impeding Educational Attainment *
Author(s) -
Smith Thomas Ewin,
Hooker Eugenia
Publication year - 1989
Publication title -
sociological inquiry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.446
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 1475-682X
pISSN - 0038-0245
DOI - 10.1111/j.1475-682x.1989.tb00111.x
Subject(s) - educational attainment , affect (linguistics) , psychology , demography , developmental psychology , marital status , white (mutation) , test (biology) , minor (academic) , social class , population , sociology , political science , paleontology , biochemistry , communication , biology , law , gene , chemistry
Research on individuals who graduated from high school from 1958 through 1972, has indicated that the timing of marriage and first birth had a greater affect on educational attainment among women than among men. It is hypothesized that, among more recent cohorts, these differences may have been reduced or eliminated by social changes in the 1970s and 1980s. A test of this hypothesis was conducted using data gathered from 187 predominantly white, middle‐class individuals who completed questionnaires in the spring of 1972, when they were in the eighth grade. A follow‐up study was conducted in 1985. The results suggest that marital and parenthood timing affect educational attainment, but the relationships were not significantly different for males and females. Furthermore, the tendency for women to marry and have children earlier than men had only a minor effect on differences in educational attainment.