The Effect of Economic Opportunity and Family Background on Adolescent Cohabitation and Childbearing among Low-Income Blacks

Randall J Olsen and George Farkas

Journal of Labor Economics, 1990, vol. 8, issue 3, 341-62

Abstract: This article uses a hazards model permitting continuous covariates and fixed effects to estimate the effect of local employment opportunity and family background on the cohabitation and childbearing of black youths from low-income households. Support is found for W. J. Wilson's hypothesis that employment opportunity discourages childbearing outside such unions. However, the latter effect appears to be larger, suggesting that the opportunity-cost hypothesis is the primary channel through which higher employment rates result in lower rates of illegitimacy among underclass youths. Copyright 1990 by University of Chicago Press.

Date: 1990
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (25)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/298226 full text (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers. See http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JOLE for details.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ucp:jlabec:v:8:y:1990:i:3:p:341-62

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Labor Economics from University of Chicago Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Journals Division ().