A Cross-Cohort Examination of Nonmarital Teenage Childbearing

Traci Mach

Discussion Papers from University at Albany, SUNY, Department of Economics

Abstract: The current paper looks at the nonmarital teenage childbearing behavior of two cohorts of NLSY women. It constructs a monthly panel of information for the teens from the time they are twelve years old until they have a nonmarital birth, reach the end of their third survey without giving birth, get married, or reach age 18. The research attempts to identify the factors that have contributed to the differences in teenage childbearing behavior that we observe across the cohorts of women by estimating a Cox proportional hazard model, stratified on race, age of mother a the birth of her first child, and the rate of marriage in the state. The model identifies education, living situations, religion, and welfare policy as factors. Specifically, for the youths of the 1990s, the introduction of restrictions on living conditions, the so-called minor parent provisions, act as a retardant to nonmarital childbearing. The model also shows that higher education for the youth and her mother delay childbearing for both cohorts of women. Finally, living with one's biological father at age 14 is linked with delayed childbearing, with hazard rates nearly 60 and 40 percent lower for teens of the two cohorts.

Keywords: Nonmarital childbearing; NLSY79; NLSY97 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I38 J13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2002
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

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:nya:albaec:02-05

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
Department of Economics, Building 25, Room 103 University at Albany State University of New York Albany, NY 12222 U.S.A.
http://www.albany.ed ... workingp/index.shtml

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Discussion Papers from University at Albany, SUNY, Department of Economics Department of Economics, Building 25, Room 103 University at Albany State University of New York Albany, NY 12222 U.S.A..
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Byoung Park ().