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The Timing of Teenage Births and the Economic Returns to Education

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  • Lisa Schulkind

    (Department of Economics, Trinity College)

Abstract

Teenage mothers tend to have poor economic outcomes later in life. However, the girls who become teenage mothers come from less advantaged backgrounds than those who delay childbearing until later in life, making causality difficult to establish. This paper examines the effect of having a child during high school versus becoming a young mother, but one who has already finished high school. I compare the outcomes of girls who have a child in the end of their senior year of high school to a control group comprised of girls who give birth a few months later. I find that girls who give birth during the school year are 9 percentage points less likely to graduate from high school; however, this has little effect on their eventual labor market outcomes. Despite being much more likely to obtain a High School degree, the control group does not enjoy higher earnings later in life, and is not any more likely to be working.

Suggested Citation

  • Lisa Schulkind, 2013. "The Timing of Teenage Births and the Economic Returns to Education," Working Papers 1304, Trinity College, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:tri:wpaper:1304
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    File URL: http://www3.trincoll.edu/repec/WorkingPapers2013/WP13-04.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2013
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. V. Joseph Hotz & Susan Williams McElroy & Seth G. Sanders, 2005. "Teenage Childbearing and Its Life Cycle Consequences: Exploiting a Natural Experiment," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 40(3).
    2. Kasey S. Buckles & Daniel M. Hungerman, 2013. "Season of Birth and Later Outcomes: Old Questions, New Answers," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(3), pages 711-724, July.
    3. Adam Ashcraft & Kevin Lang, 2006. "The Consequences of Teenage Childbearing," NBER Working Papers 12485, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Arline T. Geronimus & Sanders Korenman, 1992. "The Socioeconomic Consequences of Teen Childbearing Reconsidered," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(4), pages 1187-1214.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Teenage Childbearing; Signaling Value; High School Degree;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • I20 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - General

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