Academic skills and reproductive behavior among adolescent girls.

尽管全球妇女受教育程度大幅提高， 在一些国家，结婚比预期的要慢，这就提出了一个问题：在什么条件下， 教育最有可能转化为晚婚和低生育率？大量的文献存在于 发展中国家的成绩和生育行为之间的联系。相比之下， 了解学术技能的影响，无论是绝对水平还是水平的变化，对时间的影响。 婚姻和生育，部分原因是研究人员不得不依赖横截面数据， 水平--通常是识字水平--是在兴趣和年级成绩的结果被用作代理之后衡量的 技能水平。此外，似乎没有在低收入环境中对早婚的影响进行研究 怀孕对保留或丧失学术技能的影响。理解双向关系 学术技能和生殖行为之间的关系，特别是对低收入环境中的少女来说， 谁可能经历从学生到成人角色的快速转变，将提供更有效的干预措施， 提高青少年和成年人的识字和算术能力，推迟结婚， 怀孕使用最近收集的三个低收入环境的纵向数据集-马拉维（N=1337）， 赞比亚（N=5241）和孟加拉国（11617），后两者包括随机分组对照试验， 这项拟议中的研究将有助于我们理解学术技能和生殖能力之间的联系。 通过解决几个关键问题，研究了青春期女孩的行为：1）学习技能水平如何在 青少年和因素，有助于获得或损失; 2）是否有一个最低水平的等级 防止技能丧失的成就; 3）技能水平以及该水平的变化对 第一次生殖活动的时间; 4）早婚和早育在多大程度上造成损失 学术技能; 5）促进技能获得和保留的条件和干预措施， 脆弱的青少年。虽然很少有关于技能水平的纵向数据与关于时间的数据相结合 在婚姻和生育方面，在多个环境中拥有此类数据的情况就更少了。分析样品将是 仅限于已入学且尚未经历第一次生殖事件的女孩 （结婚或怀孕）。除了利用群集随机对照试验 嵌入AGEP和BALIKA，我们将使用工具变量分析和固定效应模型， 最大限度地减少我们的结果中由于内分泌而产生的潜在偏差。拟议的研究将大大扩大 关于撒哈拉以南非洲和南亚学习保留的原因和后果的知识库， 在这两个地区，尽管入学机会增加，但大量青少年缺乏基本技能 需要过上富有成效和健康的生活。

Despite dramatic gains in women’s educational attainment globally, the pace of decline in fertility and child marriage is slower than expected in some countries, raising the question: Under which conditions is women’s education most likely to translate into delayed marriage and lower fertility? A voluminous literature exists on the links between grade attainment and reproductive behavior in the developing world. In contrast, much less is known about the effect of academic skills, both the absolute level and the change in the level, on the timing of marriage and childbearing, in part because researchers have had to rely on cross-sectional data where skill level — typically literacy — is measured after the outcomes of interest and grade attainment is used as a proxy for skill level. Further, there appears to be no research in low-income settings on the effect of early marriage and pregnancy on the retention or loss of academic skills. Understanding the bidirectional relationship between academic skills and reproductive behavior, particularly for adolescent girls in low-income settings, who may experience rapid transitions from student to adult roles, will inform more effective interventions both to improve adolescent and adult literacy and numeracy, and to delay marriage and prevent adolescent pregnancy. Using recently collected longitudinal datasets from three low-income settings—Malawi (N=1337), Zambia (N=5241), and Bangladesh (11617), the latter two of which include cluster-randomized controlled trials, the proposed study will contribute to our understanding of the links between academic skills and reproductive behavior among adolescent girls by addressing several key issues: 1) how academic skill levels change during adolescence and factors that contribute to gain or loss; 2) whether there is a minimum level of grade attainment that protects against skill loss; 3) the extent to which skill level, and change in that level, affects the timing of the first reproductive event; 4) the extent to which early marriage and childbearing contribute to loss of academic skills; and 5) the conditions and interventions that promote skill acquisition and retention among vulnerable adolescents. While it is rare to have longitudinal data on skill level combined with data on the timing of marriage and childbearing, it is even rarer to have such data in multiple settings. The analytic sample will be limited to those girls who were enrolled in school and had not yet experienced a first reproductive event (marriage or pregnancy) at baseline. In addition to taking advantage of the cluster-randomized controlled trials embedded in AGEP and BALIKA, we will use instrumental variable analysis and fixed effects models to minimize potential biases in our results due to endogeneity. The proposed study will greatly expand the knowledge base on the causes and consequences of learning retention in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, two regions where, despite increasing access to schooling, large numbers of adolescents lack basic skills needed to lead productive and healthy lives.