How much have changed the decisions of young people in Colombia over the past three decades?

Authors

  • Javier Báez R.

Keywords:

Household incomes, rate of return of education, incomes by gender, education and incomes

Abstract

The decisions taken by young Colombians in their early years as potentially independent individuals (25 to 35 years of age) have changed during the last decades. A good part of these decisions have to do with attending college or not. The results show that young people today prefer conjugal relations such as free unions and are more prone to separations
and divorce, especially those that are not college-educated. At present, young people tend to form smaller families and have their children at later ages, especially the college-educated. The gap in the labor incomes of young women with and without college training has been increasing since 1985. There has been an equalization of salaries between genders,
but only among the college-educated. Schooling and labor force participation among young women have increased much more than those of men in the last three decades. The Mincerian income functions suggest that the rate of return of education form young people between the ages of 25 and 35 decreased through the period under study. Secondary education by itself does not appear to have much influence on the labor incomes of young people. The opposite occurs with a completed college education. Migration by young professionals appears to be a response to more attractive economic conditions at the point of destination. Logit models indicate that per capita income in the households of young people
has a positive correlation with school attendance of children. The more children young people have, the lower the probability of school attendance of any one of them. If a young head of a household - or both - has completed his/her college education, there is a higher probability that their children will attend school, especially secondary school. This
probability is 40% higher than that of the children of young people who have not attended college.

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Published

2022-03-25

Issue

Section

Science article