The expansion of tertiary education is key to understanding postponement of first births. Currently, online distance education is changing the nature of university enrolment. In this study, I suggest that online distance education impacts on fertility by facilitating the transition to parenthood among students. I examine the relationship between online distance education and first births during university enrolment. Using survival analysis of register data for the 1968–1991 female cohorts, I examine the impact of distance and campus education on first-parity transitions during university enrolment between 2004 and 2012 (N = 938,768). Results indicate that the negative association between enrolment and first parity conception differs substantially between campus and distance enrolment. Compared to non-enrolment, the hazard of first parity conception is 70% lower during campus enrolment but 43% lower during distance enrolment. These findings are discussed in relation to educational heterogeneity and fertility postponement and the impact of technological innovation on family dynamics.

The present study investigates the impact of union formation, parenthood and union dissolution on Swedes’ attitudes toward divorce. The results, based on fixed-effects models of longitudinal data from the Young Adult Panel Study (YAPS), suggest a prevalent, albeit small, influence of family life-course events on attitudes toward divorce in Sweden. Attitudes toward divorce are studied using two survey statements: ‘It is too easy to get divorced in today’s Sweden’ (item A) and ‘Parents should stay together for the sake of their children’ (item B). For both items, union dissolution from parental relationships is associated with a decrease in intolerance toward divorce, but only for women. For men, but not for women, parental union formation increases intolerance toward divorce as measured by item B. The results are discussed in relation to the literature on gendered family life-course experiences.

Individuals tend to partner with people of a similar educational level as themselves. According to the matching hypothesis, exposure to education leads to similarity in taste and cultural cognitive schemas, causing educationally similar partners to form unions. In this study, I ask if such formative content of education matters for educational homogamy, net of other forces. Evaluating this claim is often difficult because educational level also beget human resources and because marriage markets are structured by educational level - aspects which also lead to educational homogamy. I approach this issue using a semi-experimental design that tentatively holds constant marriage markets and human capital related to education. Using a national reform, I compare the educational assortative mating of upper secondary vocational students who studied under a theoretical curriculum to that of vocational students not exposed to a theoretical curriculum. The reform provides variability in formative education. Yet, it induces no variation in competitive human capital and marriage markets, as students obtain comparable human capital within the same standard upper secondary track. Therefore, effects may be attributed to matching on formative content of the added theoretical curriculum. Before and after adjusting for selection, I find no effect of an added theoretical curriculum on partnering. The results are discussed in terms of the ambiguity of formative education as an explanation for educational assortative mating.