ABSTRACT

This study estimates the impact of women’s college education on their fertility-related outcomes by taking advantage of a natural experiment known as the graduation quota program that massively expanded women’s opportunities to attend college in South Korea. After the 1979 military coup, the military regime in South Korea ordered all public and private colleges to expand their college admission levels by 30 per cent in 1981 and 50 per cent in 1982. This study implemented instrumental variable (IV) analysis using the Korean Longitudinal Survey of Women and Families (KLoWF). Specifically, our IV analysis uses the birth cohorts that were differently exposed to this sudden and exogenous policy change as an instrumental variable to identify the longer-term effects of college education on women’s fertility-related outcomes. It is found that college education caused those women who were induced to attend college by the graduation quota program to have fewer children. Furthermore, this study finds that this impact can be partially explained by women being less likely to get married.

摘要

这项研究利用称为毕业配额计划的自然实验来估计女性大学教育对其生育相关结果的影响，该实验极大地增加了女性在韩国上大学的机会。1979 年军事政变后，韩国军政府命令所有公立和私立大学在 1981 年和 1982 年将大学入学率提高 30%，在 1982 年提高 50%。本研究使用韩国纵向变量进行工具变量 (IV) 分析妇女和家庭调查（KLoWF）。具体来说，我们的 IV 分析使用受这种突然和外生政策变化影响不同的出生队列作为工具变量，以确定大学教育对女性生育相关结果的长期影响。结果发现，大学教育导致那些被毕业配额计划诱导上大学的女性生育的孩子更少。此外，这项研究发现，这种影响可以部分解释为女性不太可能结婚。