Does education help combat early marriage? The effect of compulsory schooling laws in China

This paper studies the relationship between education and early marriage by exploiting the 1986 Compulsory Schooling Laws in China. We find that one additional year of schooling decreases the probability of marriage before age 18 by 1.7% points and increases the age at first marriage by 0.734 years. We examine the role of labour market outcomes, marriage traditions, assortative mating, and peer marriage behaviours. We also find evidence that education decreases fertility outcomes and affects the marriage outcomes of the next generation. This suggests that policies aimed at combating early marriage could start with improving children’s educational attainment.