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Does Education Reduce Teen Fertility? Evidence from Compulsory Schooling Laws

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  • Philip DeCicca
  • Harry Krashinsky
Abstract
While less-educated women are more likely to give birth as teenagers, there is scant evidence the relationship is causal. We investigate this possibility using variation in compulsory schooling laws (CSLs) to identify the impact of formal education on teen fertility for a large sample of women drawn from multiple waves of the Canadian Census. We find that greater CSL-induced schooling reduces the probability of giving birth as a teenager by roughly two to three percentage points. We find evidence that education affects the timing of births in a way that strongly implies an “incarceration” effect of education. In particular, we find large negative impacts of education on births to young women aged seventeen and eighteen, but little evidence of an effect after these ages, consistent with the idea that being enrolled in school deters fertility in a contemporaneous manner. Our findings are robust to the inclusion of several province-level characteristics including multiple dimensions of school quality, expenditures on public programs and region-specific time trends.

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  • Philip DeCicca & Harry Krashinsky, 2015. "Does Education Reduce Teen Fertility? Evidence from Compulsory Schooling Laws," NBER Working Papers 21594, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:21594
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    Cited by:

    1. Bilge Erten & Luis Pinar Keskin, 2017. "Breaking the Cycle? Education and the Intergenerational Transmission of Violence," Boston University - Department of Economics - Working Papers Series dp-296, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    2. Murat G. Kırdar & Meltem Dayıoğlu & İsmet Koç, 2018. "The Effects of Compulsory-Schooling Laws on Teenage Marriage and Births in Turkey," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 12(4), pages 640-668.
    3. Marine de Talancé, 2019. "Education, fertility and childlessness in Indonesia [Education, fécondité en Indonésie]," Working Papers hal-02310876, HAL.
    4. Hamad, Rita & Elser, Holly & Tran, Duy C. & Rehkopf, David H. & Goodman, Steven N., 2018. "How and why studies disagree about the effects of education on health: A systematic review and meta-analysis of studies of compulsory schooling laws," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 212(C), pages 168-178.
    5. Ando, Michihito & Mori, Hiroaki & Yamaguchi, Shintaro, 2022. "Universal early childhood education and adolescent risky behavior," SocArXiv rnkgs, Center for Open Science.
    6. Garcez, Lucas N. & Padilla-Romo, María & Peluffo, Cecilia & Pineda-Torres, Mayra, 2024. "Improvements in Schooling Opportunities and Teen Births," IZA Discussion Papers 16791, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Hoang, Trung X. & Nguyen, Ha, 2023. "Multi-generational effects of school access in a developing country: Evidence from a mass education program in Vietnam," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    8. Songtao Yang, 2022. "The effects of compulsory schooling reforms on women’s marriage outcomes—evidence from Britain," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 63(3), pages 1637-1662, September.
    9. Michihito Ando & Hiroaki Mori & Shintaro Yamaguchi, 2022. "Universal Early Childhood Education and Adolescent Risky Behavior," RF Berlin - CReAM Discussion Paper Series 2218, Rockwool Foundation Berlin (RF Berlin) - Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM).
    10. Chen, Jiwei & Guo, Jiangying, 2022. "The effect of female education on fertility: Evidence from China’s compulsory schooling reform," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    11. Ando, Michihito & Mori, Hiroaki & Yamaguchi, Shintaro, 2022. "Universal Early Childhood Education and Adolescent Risky Behavior," IZA Discussion Papers 15531, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. Poh Lin Tan, 2017. "The impact of school entry laws on female education and teenage fertility," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 30(2), pages 503-536, April.
    13. DeCicca, Philip & Krashinsky, Harry, 2020. "Does education reduce teen fertility? Evidence from compulsory schooling laws," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).

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    JEL classification:

    • I1 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • I24 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Inequality
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth

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