Dr. Aedín Doris:

The studies that have been done in Australia do not show any effect. One could come up with anecdotal stories of people who say they were left in that situation and made a decision but, looking at the mean, as these studies tend to do, there has not been an effect. Family formation has been happening later in Australia but that is following a trend that was happening before income contingent loans were brought in. Family formation is also happening later in Ireland. There is an international trend that women are more educated and are having their babies later. When one discounts that trend, income contingent loans have not had an impact on family formation.