Factors Influencing Changes in Mean Age at First Marriage and Proportions Never Marrying in the Low-Fertility Countries of East and Southeast Asia

Ethnic differentials in the timing of family formation

“…These substantive findings support those of previous studies (e.g., Hirschman 1985;Jejeebhoy 1995;Singh and Samara 1996;Gupta and Mahy 2003;Jones and Gubhaju 2009). The positive association between educational attainment and female age at marriage is one of the least contested findings in the literature, often with implicit or explicit interpretation as causal of age at marriage (e.g., Jejeebhoy 1995, Yabiku 2005.…”

“…The small numbers of women with tertiary education and the limitations of the measure employed may-together with the substantive reasons already discussed (Section 6.2)-help to explain this anomaly. It is also the case that most studies relating fertility behaviour to education employ a much lower cut-off to define the highest educational category (e.g., Singh and Samara 1996;Yabiku 2005), though a monotonic increase in age at marriage is found at all levels up to tertiary education in East and Southeast Asia (Jones and Gubhaju 2009). The relationship between higher levels of education, employment, and family formation in developing countries warrants further investigation.…”

Cohort fertility decline in low fertility countries: Decomposition using parity progression ratios

“…The traditional expectations about women's role in the family made it difficult for women to continue working after marriage, despite their increasing education and employment opportunities. This growing conflict between career opportunities and family life expectations resulted in a rising rate of nonmarriage (and childlessness), especially among highly educated women (Jones and Gubhaju 2009;Tsuya 2015;Yoo 2016).…”

The gender divide in urban China: Singlehood and assortative mating by age and education

“…The first factor is the gender system (England and Farkas 1986;Oppenheimer 1988). Empirically, the effect of education on marriage depends on gender role differentiation: in societies with greater genderasymmetric division of labor within households, such as Italy and East and Southeast Asia, women"s educational level is found to be negatively associated with entry into marriage (Jones and Gubhaju 2009;Pinnelli and De Rose 1995;Raymo 2003), while in societies with more gender-egalitarian division of labor within households, such as the United States, Sweden, and West Germany, women"s education is insignificantly or positively related to marriage (Blossfeld and Rohwer 1995;Goldstein and Kenney 2001;Hoem 1995;Sweeney 2002).…”