Improvements in Schooling Opportunities and Teen Births

Lucas N. Garcez (), María Padilla-Romo (), Cecilia Peluffo () and Mayra Pineda-Torres ()
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Lucas N. Garcez: University of Tennessee
María Padilla-Romo: University of Tennessee
Cecilia Peluffo: University of Florida

No 16791, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We study the causal relationship between educational attainment and teenage birth rates by focusing on a large-scale, country-wide reform that made high school compulsory and removed previously existing school capacity constraints in Mexico. Relying on administrative data on schools and births, we implement a difference-in-differences strategy that exploits variation across time and municipality-level exposure to the reform to explore the effects of expanding educational opportunities on teenage fertility. We find that teenage birth rates decreased by 2.8 percent after the education reform in municipalities with high increases in high school availability relative to municipalities with low increases. This decline is not driven by a decline in the time teenagers had to engage in risky behaviors (incapacitation effect) but a potential change in expectations for the future.

Keywords: education reform; teenage birth rate; human capital (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I12 I21 I28 J13 J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 44 pages
Date: 2024-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev, nep-edu, nep-law and nep-ure
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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