Does education reduce teen fertility? Evidence from compulsory schooling laws

Philip DeCicca and Harry Krashinsky

Journal of Health Economics, 2020, vol. 69, issue C

Abstract: While less-educated women are more likely to give birth as teenagers, there is scant evidence the relationship is causal. We investigate this possibility using variation in compulsory schooling laws (CSLs) to identify the impact of formal education on teen fertility at specific ages for a large sample of women drawn from multiple waves of the Canadian Census. We find large negative impacts of education on births for young women aged seventeen and eighteen, but less systematic evidence of an effect after these ages. While our findings are consistent with an “incarceration effect”, where school enrollment deters fertility in a contemporaneous manner, we cannot rule out longer-run effects of education on fertility.

Keywords: Causal estimation; Education; Health; Teen fertility; Compulsory schooling (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Working Paper: Does Education Reduce Teen Fertility? Evidence from Compulsory Schooling Laws (2015)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jhecon:v:69:y:2020:i:c:s0167629617309438

DOI: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2019.102268

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