Human Capital Investments or Norms of Role Transition? How Women's Schooling and Career Affect the Process of Family Formation

Abstract

Proponents of the "new home economics" hypothesize that women's growing economic independence largely accounts for the rise in delayed marriage and motherhood in industrialized societies. This article assesses this hypothesis for the Federal Republic of Gernamy by estimating the dynamic effects of women's educational and career investments on the timing of family events. Eventhistory analysis shows that the delaying effect on the timing of the first marriage across cohorts does not result from an increase in the quality of women's human capital investiments as posited by the new home economics. Rather, women's extended participation in schooling delays their transition to adulthood, an effect aligned with normative expectations that young women in school are "not ready" for marriage and motherhood. Increasing career resources, however, do lead women to postpone or avoid having children.