The impact of school entry laws on female education and teenage fertility

School Starting Age and Cognitive Development

“…The August‐September difference for graduating and receiving a standard diploma is positive and statistically significant regardless of specification; however, we do not find any other consistent results across the additional outcomes. Overall, our high school graduate findings are inconsistent with findings from Dobkin and Ferreira (), Cook and Kang (), Hemelt and Rosen (), and Tan (). This can be potentially explained by two opposing forces in action at the same time when measuring the August‐September difference—both that the September‐born students have a cognitive advantage over their August counterparts (as can be seen proxied by their test scores) and also that they have the ability to drop out of high school for a longer period of time due to their increased age.…”

“…For example, some papers find larger differences for girls (Datar, ) while others for boys (McEwan & Shapiro, ; Puhani & Weber, ). Similarly, there is evidence that effects are larger among higher SES families in some contexts (Elder & Lubotsky, ; Tan, ) but in lower SES families in others (Black et al., ; Cook & Kang, ; Datar, ; Hemelt & Rosen, ). Because of the contradictory results in the literature, examining effect heterogeneity, especially using large‐scale linked administrative data, is important as it may provide further insights on these earlier conflicting results.…”

School Starting Age and Cognitive Development

“…The August-September difference for graduating and receiving a standard diploma is positive and statistically significant regardless of specification; however, we do not find any other consistent results across the additional outcomes. Overall, our high school graduate findings are inconsistent with findings from Dobkin and Ferreira (2010), Cook and Kang (2016), Hemelt and Rosen (2016), and Tan (2017). This can be potentially explained by two opposing forces in action at the same time when measuring the August-September difference-both that the September-born students have a cognitive advantage over their August counterparts (as can be seen proxied by their test scores) and also that they have the ability to drop out of high school for a longer period of time due to their increased age.…”

“…For example, some papers find larger differences for girls (Datar, 2006) while others for boys (McEwan & Shapiro, 2008;Puhani & Weber, 2007). Similarly, there is evidence that effects are larger among higher SES families in some contexts (Elder & Lubotsky, 2009;Tan, 2017) but in lower SES families in others (Black et al, 2011;Cook & Kang, 2016;Datar, 2006;Hemelt & Rosen, 2016). Because of the contradictory results in the literature, examining effect heterogeneity, especially using large-scale linked administrative data, is important as it may provide further insights on these earlier conflicting results.…”

“…A number of recent studies have found that children who enter school at an older age than their classmates have a variety of short-and medium-term advantages such as scoring higher on standardized exams through primary and secondary school, 1 having higher development of non-cognitive skills (Lubotsky & Kaestner, 2016), and being less likely to commit a crime (Cook & Kang, 2016;Depew & Eren, 2016). Some other examples of outcomes investigated in this literature include high school leadership (Dhuey & Lipscomb, 2008), becoming a corporate CEO (Du et al, 2012) or politician (Muller & Page, 2016), secondary school track placement (Bedard & Dhuey, 2006;Muhlenweg & Puhani, 2010;Puhani & Weber, 2007;Schneeweis & Zweimuller, 2014), fertility (Black et al, 2011;McCrary & Royer, 2011;Pena, 2017;Tan, 2017), and disability identification, mental health, and special education service uptake. 2 All these findings together suggest that early differences in maturity can propagate through the human capital accumulation process into later life and may have important implications for adult outcomes and productivity.…”