Intergenerational transmission of teen childbearing in Latin America

Matilde Machado (), Ricardo Mora Villarrubia and Karen Olivo

No 1840, Research Department working papers from CAF Development Bank Of Latinamerica

Abstract: Using DHS data for six Latin American countries, we estimate the relation between a mother’s teenage childbearing status and that of her daughter. Restricting the estimating sample to mother-daughter matches in the data leads to a large negative selection bias in the estimated effect because missing matches are non-random and affected by the teen childbearing status of mothers and daughters. We deal with this selection bias by developing a Maximum Likelihood estimation using all available data, including incomplete mother-daughter pairs, and allowing missing observations to be endogenous. Our results show that being the daughter of a teen mother increases the chances of being a teen mother between 8.7 and 26.2 percentage points (between 61 and 172%). We conclude that the prevalence of such high intergenerational transmission is at the core of persistent high teenage childbearing rates in Latin America and suggests alternative public policy fixes.

Keywords: Cuidado infantil; Mujer; Niñez; Políticas públicas (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:dbl:dblwop:1840

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