Effects of the 2001 draft suspension in Spain on educational attainment

Stefani Milovanska-Farrington and Cagdas Agirdas

Research in Economics, 2024, vol. 78, issue 3

Abstract: Following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War, multiple European countries abolished compulsive military service to opt for a professional military. These reforms may have positive or negative effects on young men's educational attainment. On one hand, these individuals may have more time to pursue their education without the interruption caused by compulsive military service. On the other, if young men were using their education as a way to delay or prevent compulsive military service, then they may pursue less education in the absence of such an incentive. In this study, we ask how the 2001 reform to abolish compulsive military service in Spain affected educational attainment of young men. Using a difference-in-differences approach along time and gender, we find that there was a significant increase in university education and a significant decrease in secondary education after the reform. Next, we use a triple difference model along time, gender and a binary variable indicating whether both of the young man's parents were low educated in order to analyze the potential heterogenous effects of the reform depending on the education level of an individual. We find that an average young man born after 1982 was 7.6% more likely to obtain university education and 9.7% less likely to obtain secondary education after the reform. Finally, we control for time, year, and province of birth fixed effects to mitigate omitted variable bias. Our results remain similar except that the positive effect of the reform on university education becomes marginally significant.

Keywords: Mandatory military service; Educational attainment; Literacy; Difference-in-differences; Triple difference; Spain (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:reecon:v:78:y:2024:i:3:s1090944324000449

DOI: 10.1016/j.rie.2024.100980

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