Cohort and Period Analysis of Marriage Change of Iranian Women Using Nuptiality Life Tables

The existing studies on the status of age pattern of marriage of Iranian women are mainly based on various hypotheses such as marriage squeeze and changes in the marriage market. However, by increasing the share of educated women, education can affect the age pattern and delay in women's marriage independently. Emphasizing on the effect of education on the age pattern of marriage, this article attempts to evaluate average changes in the years of celibacy of women using cohort and cross-sectional analysis. For this purpose, cross-sectional data were generated for the 2016 and cohort data for three hypothetical cohorts born in the periods 1981-86, 1986-91 and 1991-96 by educational levels and urban and rural areas. Then, using the Cole's proposed method, the cohort experience of women's marriage was completed for all three cohorts and the cohort and cross-sectional marriage ratios by education and urban-rural areas were entered into the nuptiality life table. The findings indicate that the highest average years of celibacy are related to university women, so that the cohort born in 1986-91 will experience the longest delay and the cohort born in 1991-96 will experience the least delay in marriage. The comparison of urban and rural data indicates that with an increase in level of education, rural women will experience more delay in marriage than urban women.