HOW DOES WOMENS LEVEL OF EDUCATION EFFECT FAMILY FORMATION AND LABOR-FORCE INTERRUPTION - AN EMPIRICAL-ANALYSIS OF MICROECONOMIC THEORY

Until recently life-course research and microeconomic theory showed th at the level of education influences the date of marriage and time of becoming a mother. These family events depend not only on women's educ ational level, but also on the time women leave the institutionalized system of education. Our purpose in this article is to provide a contr ibution to three different questions: What is the relative power of th e level of education and the duration of the educational or vocational training on the timing and probability of family events. Second, how are labor force interruptions influenced of the opportunity costs base d on high levels of education, and third: are there any effects of the educational system in the former GDR on the process of becoming a mot her. These questions are answered with event history analysis, based o n the German DJI-family survey. Based on the analysis, we found that t he date of the family events as well as the time of leaving the labor force are influenced by the level of education. Similar results were f ound for the GDR. At least the theoretical importance of the results f or the GDR for the microeconomic theory has to be discussed furthermor e.