For both cohorts, high school drop-out was predictive of earlier first childbirth for women and men, particularly before age 25. In contrast, completing high school was associated with reproductive delay for women in older and young cohorts, the latter before age 25. Similar effects were observed for men in the young cohort. Although early school leavers show increased risk for AD (Crum, Helzer, & Anthony, 1993; Rice, Neuman, Saccone, Corbett, Rochberg, et al., 2003), such findings are consistent with research documenting reproductive delays associated with continued education (Heck, Shoendorf, Ventura, & Kiely, 1997), and likewise, high rates of high school drop-out among teenage parents (Klepinger, Lundberg, & Plotnick, 1995: Upchurch & McCarthy, 1990).
