studied and skills acquired.
Malaysia
BRIEN, Michael J. and LILLIARD, Lee A. (1994), Education, Marriage, and First
Conception in Malaysia, Journal of Human Resources, XXIX (4), 1167-1204.
This paper examines cohort and ethnic differences in education, the timing of marriage,
and the timing of first conception for women in Peninsular Malaysia. The authors
examine the roles of education and enrolment in delaying marriage and first conception,
and dropping out of school. The focus is on the joint nature of these decisions by
controlling the endogeneity of one outcome as it affects the others. Changes in
education and enrolment account for a substantial position of the cohort trend towards
later age of marriage in this part of Malaysia. Further, most of the rise in the age of first
conception across cohorts and ethnic groups is fully accounted for by cohort and ethnic
differences in the age of marriage.
All this is set against a picture of rising educational attainment for both sexes and the
evidence of a wider spread of curricular interests and therefore employment
opportunities among females. However the authors merely ask whether either
educational development or economic development, or both have a causal connection
with the marriage and conception trends recorded? Substantial amounts of data are
provided and various statistical models employed.
After this detailed descriptive analysis they are prompted to select a number of
questions as being of first order significance: is endogeneity important? what about the
age at marriage? what is the role of marital status? The fix on the last one is significant
in that in Malaysia, marital status is critical to understanding the timing of first
conception because there is very little childbearing outside of marriage. They conclude
with the following summary: "We find that marital status is a very significant predictor
of the decision to continue in school, but that its importance is reduced by the rarity of
marriage before leaving school. A number of other explanatory factors are found to
influence continuing in school, including educational policies, family background
characteristics, and the availability of schools of the appropriate level." Availability is
an important issue in spatial terms and in respect of female take up. The usual structure
of urban advantage over rural is present in Malaysia and clearly enhances the prospects
of women continuing in education, especially as further and higher education
opportunities tend to be in towns and cities anyway.
SIDIN, Robiah (1996), Malaysia, in MAK, Grace C.L. (ed). Women, Education and
Development in Asia: Cross-National Perspectives, Garland Publishing, New York
and London, 119-141.