Books or babies? The incapacitation effect of schooling on minority women

Anna Adamecz-Völgyi and Ágota Scharle

Journal of Population Economics, 2020, vol. 33, issue 4, No 3, 1219-1261

Abstract: Abstract This paper examines the effects of an increase in the compulsory school leaving age on the teenage fertility of Roma women, a disadvantaged ethnic minority in Hungary. We use a regression discontinuity design identification strategy and show that the reform decreased the probability of teenage motherhood among Roma women by 13.4–26.0% and delayed motherhood by 2 years. We separate the incapacitation and human capital effects of education on fertility by exploiting a database that covers live births, miscarriages, abortions, and still births and contains information on the time of conception. We find that longer schooling decreases the probability of getting pregnant during the school year but not during summer and Christmas breaks, which suggests that the estimated effects are generated mostly through the incapacitation channel.

Keywords: Education; Compulsory school leaving age; Teenage fertility; Disadvantaged ethnic minorities; Regression discontinuity design (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C21 I26 J13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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DOI: 10.1007/s00148-020-00771-9

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