Marriage and Education in Australia: Decomposing the Enrolment and Human Capital Effects

Using the first two waves of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey, this paper explores the relationship between educational attainment and age at first marriage. Theory suggests that there are two effects driving the relationship, namely the Enrolment effect and the Human Capital effect. Using a Proportional Hazards model we analyse the effect of an individual’s education level on the timing of first marriage. Controlling for other institutional factors, cohort effect and social/ family background we find that the higher an individual’s education level, the older they are when they first marry. We find that the effect of education is much stronger for females than for males.