Life-Cycle Effects of Age at School Start

Swedish population register (full cohorts)

Swedish children under the rule that school starts the year they turn 7.

Population-register natural experiment estimating school-starting-age effects on attainment and lifetime earnings, including interaction with the age at which ability tracking occurs.

Starting older raises attainment on average in Sweden but leaves average prime-age earnings unchanged — except for children of low-educated parents, where it genuinely raises adult earnings. Crucially, postponing TRACKING shrinks the starting-age effect, implying much of it operates through early institutional sorting rather than through learning.

Children starting slightly older vs younger by birth timing.

Register-based cutoff design.

Disagrees with Norway (Black et al.: no attainment effect). Institutional differences — especially the age of ability tracking — are the leading explanation, but this is unresolved.