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Salvanes, “Staying in the Classroom and out of the Maternity Ward? The Effect of Compulsory Schooling Laws on Teenage Births,” Forthcoming in Economic Journal (2008)
| Citations: | 45 - 12 self |
BibTeX
@MISC{Black08salvanes,“staying,
author = {Ra E. Black and Paul J. Devereux and Kjell G. Salvanes},
title = {Salvanes, “Staying in the Classroom and out of the Maternity Ward? The Effect of Compulsory Schooling Laws on Teenage Births,” Forthcoming in Economic Journal},
year = {2008}
}
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Abstract
This article investigates whether increasing mandatory educational attainment through compulsory schooling legislation encourages women to delay childbearing. We use variation induced by changes in compulsory schooling laws in both the US and Norway to estimate the effect in two very different institutional environments. We find evidence that increased compulsory schooling does in fact reduce the incidence of teenage childbearing in both the US and Norway, and these estimates are quite robust to various specification checks. These results suggest that legislation aimed at improving educational outcomes may have spillover effects onto the fertility decisions of teenagers. Research suggests that teenage childbearing adversely affects women’s economic out-comes such as the level of completed schooling, labour market participation and wages.1 Given these deleterious consequences, it is important to understand what factors contribute to this decision. We know that low-educated women are more likely to have a teenage birth but does this imply that policies that increase educational attainment reduce early fertility? In particular, would increasing mandatory educa-tional attainment (through compulsory schooling legislation) encourage women to delay childbearing? If compulsory schooling reduces harmful or risky behaviour,
Keyphrases
teenage birth maternity ward economic journal compulsory schooling law risky behaviour compulsory schooling reduces woman economic out-comes mandatory educational attainment educational outcome different institutional environment market participation teenage childbearing early fertility low-educated woman spillover effect legislation encourages woman deleterious consequence mandatory educa-tional attainment fertility decision compulsory schooling educational attainment various specification check
