ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the variations in participation in higher education with respect to family circumstance, i.e. whether one are single, cohabiting, married, and/or a parent. Participation in higher education is modelled separately for men and women. Being enrolled in education is often considered incompatible with family formation. For men at least some of the estimated negative effects of early family formation are weaker. The choice of higher education can also be a reaction to life events within or outside the family. The human capital approach would lead to a somewhat different question, namely whether enrolment differences between family circumstances change with age. An alternative explanation is that family circumstances with higher interruption rates also have a high inflow during university enrolment. Transition rate models for the beginning of full-time university studies and the interruption of full-time studies are estimated. Multivariate models are estimated for taking up and interrupting tertiary level education.
