Transitions: Career and Family Life Cycles of the Educational Elite

Abstract

Among life’s most vital transitions are those concerning family and career. We decide when and whom to marry, how many children to have, whether to further our education, and which occupations and jobs to pursue. Fundamental aspects of these transitions began to change around the early 1970s for the college educated generally, and for women in particular. The median age at first marriage among college graduate women, which had been stable at about 22.5 years old from the 1950s to the early 1970s (for birth cohorts from the 1930s to about 1950), increased by 2.5 years between 1972 and 1979 (for birth cohorts from about 1950 to 1955). The fraction of women not having a first birth by around 40 years old increased from 20 percent for those graduating in the early 1960s, to 28 percent for those graduating in the 1970s. College graduate women greatly increased their education in professional schools; the fraction female among first-year law and medical school students, for example, was 10 percent in 1970 but rose to 40 percent by 1990.