The Consequences of Teenage Childbearing

描述（由申请人提供）：最近的研究表明，青少年母亲的不良后果是短暂的，并且，几年后，青少年母亲比同龄的女性在十几岁时没有生育。实际上，这些研究发现，青少年母亲改变了生育的时间而不是生育的数量，对于青少年生育的女性来说，早育比晚育更受欢迎。最近的文献依赖于一种工具变量技术，主要是比较青少年流产（自然流产）的女性和没有流产的女性。该提案指出，（人工）流产的存在和时机在这种方法中产生了重要的偏差，可能导致少女母亲是良性的结论，并提出了两种替代估计方法。首先是样本中流产的妇女，并将流产的妇女与生育的妇女进行比较。这个估计者偏离了良性的观点。使用有堕胎和没有堕胎的估计量，我们对少女母亲的影响有一个界限。初步估计表明，边界足够紧，可以提供信息。如果堕胎的时机（而不是使用）与成年后的结果无关，第二个新的估计是有效的。在这种情况下，IV和限制样本估计可以结合起来，给出一个一致的估计青少年母亲对成人结果的影响。初步估计支持这一假设的有效性。这项研究将把这些技术应用到全国家庭增长调查的四波调查中，以提出以下问题：1)青少年生育对受教育程度（以年龄和高中毕业程度衡量）、婚姻状况、就业和工作时间、个人收入和家庭收入、相对于需求的收入和总生育率有什么影响？2)这些影响在生命周期中是如何变化的？3)这些影响是如何随时间变化的？解决少女母亲问题的适当政策主要取决于其影响。如果最近的文献是正确的，那么要么少女母亲不应该被视为问题，要么必须通过改变潜在少女母亲的生活期望来解决，这样她们的生活前景就足够积极，不会因为过早分娩而受到损害。如果未成年母亲的影响甚至对高危人群都是不利的，那么关于后果的教育是一种潜在的有效干预。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Recent research has suggested that the adverse consequences of teenage motherhood are short- lived, and that, after a few years, teenage mothers do better than similar women who do not give birth as teens, In effect, these studies find that teenage motherhood changes the timing of births rather than the number of births and that, for the type of woman who gives birth as a teen, early childbearing is preferable to later childbearing. The recent literature has relied on an instrumental variables technique that essentially compares women who miscarry (have spontaneous abortions) as teens with women who do not miscarry. This proposal points out that the existence and timing of (induced) abortion creates important biases in that approach that may lead to the conclusion that teenage motherhood is benign and proposes two alternate estimators. The first drops from the sample women who aborted and compares those who miscarry with those who gave birth. This estimator is biased away from the benign view. Using the estimators with and without abortions gives us bounds on the effects of teen motherhood. Preliminary estimates indicate that the bounds are sufficiently tight to be informative. The second new estimator is valid if the timing (but not the use) of abortion is unrelated to adult outcomes. In this case, the IV and restricted-sample estimates can be combined to give a consistent estimate of the effects of teen motherhood on adult outcomes. Preliminary estimates support the validity of the assumption. The study will apply these techniques to four waves of the National Survey of Family Growth to ask 1) What is the effect of giving birth as a teen on educational attainment (measured in years and by high school graduation), marital status, employment and hours worked, individual earnings and household income, income relative to a measure of needs and total fertility? 2) How do these effects vary over the life-cycle? and 3) How have these effects changed over time? The appropriate policies for addressing teen motherhood depending critically on its effects. If the recent literature is correct, then either teen motherhood should not be viewed as problematic or it must be addressed by changing the life expectations of potential teen mothers so that they have prospects in life that are sufficiently positive to be jeopardized by early childbirth. If the effects of teen motherhood are adverse even for the population at-risk, then education about the consequences is a potentially effective intervention.