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A Teenager in Love: Multidimensional Human Capital and Teenage Pregnancy in Ghana

Author

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  • Blunch, Niels-Hugo
Abstract
I examine teenage pregnancy in Ghana, focusing on the role and interplay of Ghanaian and English reading skills, formal educational attainment, and adult literacy program participation. Pursuing several alternative identification strategies three main results are established. First, I confirm the finding from previous studies that educational attainment is negatively related to teenage pregnancy. Second, however, once Ghanaian and English reading skills are introduced, the association between educational attainment and teenage pregnancy decreases or disappears altogether. Third, for the girls who have not completed primary school, adult literacy program participation is associated with a much lower probability of experiencing a teenage pregnancy.

Suggested Citation

  • Blunch, Niels-Hugo, 2017. "A Teenager in Love: Multidimensional Human Capital and Teenage Pregnancy in Ghana," GLO Discussion Paper Series 36, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:glodps:36
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    12. Blunch, Niels-Hugo, 2013. "Staying Alive: Adult Literacy Programs and Child Mortality in Rural Ghana," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 114-126.
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    14. David I. Levine & Gary Painter, 2003. "The Schooling Costs of Teenage Out-of-Wedlock Childbearing: Analysis with a Within-School Propensity-Score-Matching Estimator," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(4), pages 884-900, November.
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    Cited by:

    1. Niels-Hugo Blunch & Jeffrey S. Hammer, 2018. "The Last of the Lost Generations? Formal and Non-Formal Education in Ghana during Times of Economic Decline and Recovery," Journal of African Development, African Finance and Economic Association (AFEA), vol. 20(2), pages 35-60.
    2. Blunch, Niels-Hugo & Datta Gupta, Nabanita, 2020. "Mothers’ health knowledge gap for children with diarrhea: A decomposition analysis across caste and religion in India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Teenage pregnancy; human capital; literacy; adult literacy programs; Ghana;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

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