Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Educational Attainment and Timing to First Union Across Three Generations of Mexican Women

  • Published:
Population Research and Policy Review Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

We use data from Wave 3 of the Mexican Family Life Survey (N = 7,276) and discrete-time regression analyses to evaluate changes in the association between educational attainment and timing to first union across three generations of women in Mexico, including a mature cohort (born between 1930 and 1949), a middle cohort (born between 1950 and 1969), and a young cohort (born between 1970 and 1979). Mirroring prior research, we find a curvilinear pattern between educational attainment and timing to first union for women born between 1930 and 1969, such that once we account for the delaying effect of school enrollment, those with the lowest (0–5 years) and highest levels of education (13+ years) are characterized by the earliest transition to a first union. For women born between 1970 and 1979, however, we find that the relationship between educational attainment and timing to first union has changed. In contrast to their peers born in earlier cohorts, highly educated women in Mexico are now postponing first union formation relative to the least educated. We draw on competing theories of educational attainment and timing to first union to help clarify these patterns in the context of Mexico.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. In our review of the literature, we refer broadly to the institution of marriage. In practice, we operationalize marriage as including both legal marriages and consensual unions. We use the term “first union” to describe our dependent variable.

  2. 125 women were interviewed after 2009 and were born 1980 or later. We placed these women in with the 1970–1979 cohorts because although they were born after 1979, there were too few to label the cohort as representative of women through 1982.

  3. We also calculated the AIC (Akaike's information criterion) for both models and Model B had a smaller value than Model A (40700 vs. 40727), indicating better model fit.

References

  • Becker, G. (1981). A treatise on the family. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Behrman, J. R., Gaviria, A., & Szekely, M. (2001). Intergenerational mobility in Latin America. Economía, 2(1), 1529–7470.

    Google Scholar 

  • Billari, F., Castiglioni, M., Castro-Martin, T., Michielin, F., & Ongaro, F. (2002). Household and union formation in a mediterranean fashion: Italy and Spain. In E. Klijzing & M. Corijn (Eds.), Dynamics of fertility and partnership in Europe: Insights and lessons from comparative research (pp. 17–41). New York: United Nations.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blossfeld, H. P. (1995). Changes in the process of family formation and women’s growing economic independence. In H.-P. Blossfeld (Ed.), The new role of women: Family formation in modern socieites (pp. 3–32). Boulder: Westview Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Box-Steffensmeir, J. M., & Jones, B. S. (2007). Event history modeling: A guide for social scientists. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cherlin, Andrew J. (2010). Demographic trends in the United States: A review of research in the 2000s. Journal of Marriage and Family, 72, 403–419.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Creighton, M., & Park, H. (2010). Closing the gender gap: Six decades of reform in Mexican education. Comparative Education Review, 54(4), 513–537.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dominguez-Folgueras, M., & Castro-Martin, T. (2008). Women’s changing socioeconomic position and union formation in Spain and Portugal. Demographic Research, 19, 1513–1549.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Echarri Cánovas, C. J., & Pérez Amador, J. (2007). En tránsito hacia la adultez: eventos en el curso de vida de los jóvenes en México. Estudios Demográficos y Urbanos, 22(1), 43–77.

    Google Scholar 

  • Esteve, A., López-Ruiz, L. Á., & Spijker, J. (2013). Disentangling how educational expansion did not increase women’s age at union formation in Latin America from 1970 to 2000. Demographic Research, 28(3), 63–76. doi:10.4054/DemRes.2013.28.3.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Freije, S., López-Acevedo, G., & Rodríguez-Oreggia, E. (2011). Effects of the 2008–2009 economic crisis on labor markets in Mexico. World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 5840.

  • Fussell, E., & Palloni, A. (2004). Persistent marriage regimes in changing times. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 66(5), 1201–1213.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Giorguli Saucedo, S. (2010). Divergent paths to adulthood in Mexico. Presented at the 2010 Annual Meetings of the Population Association of America.

  • Gyimah, S. O. (2009). Cohort differences in women’s educational attainment and the transition to first marriage in Ghana. Population Research and Policy Review, 28(4), 455–471.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía. Censo de Población y Vivienda. (2010).

  • Lindstrom, D. P., & Paz, C. B. (2001). Alternative theories of the relationship of schooling and work to family formation: Evidence from Mexico. Social Biology, 48(3–4), 278–297.

    Google Scholar 

  • Martin, T. C. (2002). Consensual unions in Latin America: Persistence of a dual nuptiality system. Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 33(1), 35–55.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mensch, B. S., Singh, S., & Casterline, J. (2005). Trends in the timing of first marriage among men and women in the developing world. In C. B. Lloyd, J. R. Behrman, N. P. Stromquist, & C. Cohen (Eds.), The Changing transitions to adulthood in developing countries: Selected studies (pp. 118–171). Washington D.C: National Academies Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mier, M., Rocha, T., & Romero, C. R. (2003). Inequalities in Mexican children’s schooling. Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 34(3), 435–454.

    Google Scholar 

  • Oppenheimer, V. K. (1988). A theory of marriage timing. American Journal of Sociology, 94, 563–591.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Parrado, E. A., & Zenteno, R. M. (2002). Gender differences in union formation in Mexico: Evidence from marital search models. Journal of Marriage and Family, 64, 756–773.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Parrado, E. A., & Zenteno, R. M. (2005). Entrada en unión de hombres y mujeres en México: perspectiva de los mercados matrimoniales. In M.-L. Coubés, M. EugeniaZavala de Cosío, & R. Zenteno (Eds.), Cambio demografico y social en el Mexico del siglo XX: una perspective de historias de vida (pp. 65–96). Tijuana: el Colegio de la Frontera Norte.

    Google Scholar 

  • Quilodran, J. (2008). Los cambios en la familia vistos desde la demografia: una breve reflexion. Estudios Demográficos y Urbanos, 23(1), 7–20.

    Google Scholar 

  • Raymo, J. M. (2003). Educational attainment and the transition to first marriage among Japanese women. Demography, 40(1), 83–103.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rubalcava, L., & Teruel, G. (2013). Mexican Family Life Survey, Third Round, Working Paper, www.ennvih-mxfls.org.

  • Santibanez, L., Vernez, G., & Razquin, P. (2005). Education in Mexico: Challenges and opportunities. In RAND education. Santa Monica: RAND Education.

  • Shirahase, S. (2000). Women’s increased higher education and the declining fertility rate in Japan. Review of Population and Social Security Policy, 9, 47–63.

    Google Scholar 

  • Solís, P., & Puga, I. (2008). New paths in marital trajectories: Marriage formation and dissolution in Mexico. Presented at Paper presented at the annual meetings of the Population Association of America, April 17–19, 2008. New Orleans, LA.

  • Terrazas, A., Papademetriou, D. G., & Rosenblum, M. R. (2011). Evolving demographic and human-capital trends in Mexico and Central America and their implications for regional migration. Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tian, F. F. (2013). Transition to first marriage in reform-era urban China: The persistent effect of education in a period of rapid social change. Population Research and Policy Review, 32, 529–552.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Torche, F. (2010). Economic crisis and inequality of educational opportunity in Latin America. Sociology of Education, 83(2), 85–110.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Torr, B. M. (2011). The changing relationship between education and marriage in the United States, 1940–2000. Journal of Family History, 36, 483–503.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

Rhiannon A. Kroeger acknowledges support by an F32 NICHD Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (F32 HD072616), as well as an NICHD center grant to the Population Research Center at The University of Texas at Austin (R24 HD042849). Rhiannon A. Kroeger, Reanne Frank, and Kammi K. Schmeer also acknowledge the support of the Institute for Population Research at The Ohio State University, supported by a grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute for Child Health and Development (R24 HD058484).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Population Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin, 305 E. 23rd Street, Stop G1800, Austin, TX, 78712, USA

    Rhiannon A. Kroeger

  2. Department of Sociology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA

    Reanne Frank & Kammi K. Schmeer

Authors
  1. Rhiannon A. Kroeger
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Reanne Frank
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Kammi K. Schmeer
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Rhiannon A. Kroeger.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Kroeger, R.A., Frank, R. & Schmeer, K.K. Educational Attainment and Timing to First Union Across Three Generations of Mexican Women. Popul Res Policy Rev 34, 417–435 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11113-014-9351-8

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11113-014-9351-8

Keywords

Search

Navigation