_Third_ , most of the related literature has focused on age(s) of first union and/or first parenting as the outcomes of interest. But there are other outcomes that are determined simultaneously (particularly with the age of first union) that are likely to shape substantially individuals’ and their children’s subsequent options and welfare. In particular, union partner and union partner family characteristics (e.g., union partner human capital, age gap with union partner, union partner’s parental family’s social and economic status) are also determined simultaneously with age of first union.<sup>1</sup> The failure to incorporate such outcomes into the analysis is likely to mean that studies on the impact of schooling on ages of first union and first parenting, even if they are not subject to the problems noted in the first three points above, are likely to result in only a partial understanding of the implications of the processes under study.

In this study we contribute to the literature by investigating the impact of schooling attainment on ages of first union and first parenting using unusually rich data collected over 35 years in a particular developing country context, Guatemala. We advance beyond the previous literature with regard to all three of the limitations in the literature just discussed: (1) We treat schooling as behaviourally determined, (2) we include other aspects of individuals’ human capital and parental family background; and (3) we include outcomes additional to ages of first union and first parenting, such as union partner’s human capital and union partner’s family’s physical and human assets. Throughout all of this analysis, as in almost all of the previous literature, we consider gender differences because of the considerable emphasis in the literature on young ages of first union and first parenting being experienced particularly by women and being particularly detrimental to women.

We organize this study by first presenting a brief overview of previous relevant literature on patterns in the ages of first unions and first parenthood and some associations and determinants throughout the developing world (Section 2), then presenting a conceptual framework (Section 3), then presenting the data (Section 4), then presenting our alternative estimates for each of a number of outcomes (Section 5), and finally concluding (Section 6).

# **2. Overview of Patterns in Ages of First Union and of First Parenting in**

# **Developing Countries**

The recent NRC/IOM (2005) panel report on transitions to adulthood referred to above has summarized the state of knowledge on patterns in and determinants of ages of first union and first parenting. The major points that this report emphasizes are: _Transition into first union:_

- Compared with previous generations, smaller proportions of young women and men are in unions in most regions. Men still form unions at older ages than women.  While only one-

> 1 There is a large literature on assortative mating on schooling (a prominent example is Mare 1991), but for the most part in this literature there is no attention to behavioral determinants of schooling and the possibilities of important unobserved variable bias.  An early exception is Boulier and Rosenzweig (1984), but they identify the schooling impact by the assumption that parental income/occupation only affects schooling directly, not age of marriage or the marriage match.  Another exception is Behrman and Rozenzweig (2002) who find that estimated assortative mating on schooling attainment falls considerably with control for unobserved endowments (through using data on identical twins to control for shared endowments) that might affect both schooling and union  outcomes

2