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Understanding the effects of early motherhood in Britain: the effects on mothers

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Author Info
Alissa Goodman () (Institute for Fiscal Studies)
Greg Kaplan () (Institute for Fiscal Studies)
Ian Walker () (Institute for Fiscal Studies and University of Warwick)

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Abstract

This paper examines the socio-economic consequences of teenage motherhood for a cohort of British women born in 1970. We apply a number of different methodologies on the same dataset, including OLS, a propensity score matching estimator, and an instrumental variables estimator, using miscarriages as an instrument. We bound the biases introduced through IV due to non-randomness, and misreporting of the instrument. Our results are sensitive to the methodologies used. Taking only observed characteristics into account, the effects of teenage motherhood appear large and negative. The pathways are through bigger family size, and negative labour market outcomes for the mother and her partner, and are mitigated by transfers from the state through the British benefit system. Our IV estimates show that almost all these effects are reduced to zero once unobserved heterogeneity is taken into account. However our IV bounds show that biases introduced by non-randomness and misreporting of our instrument could be responsible for all of this apparent reduction in effects.

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Paper provided by Institute for Fiscal Studies in its series IFS Working Papers with number W04/20.

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Length: 43 pp.
Date of creation: Aug 2004
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Handle: RePEc:ifs:ifsewp:04/20

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. D. Klepinger & S. Lundberg & R. Plotnick, . "How Does Adolescent Fertility Affect the Human Capital and Wages of Young Women?," Institute for Research on Poverty Discussion Papers 1145-97, University of Wisconsin Institute for Research on Poverty. [Downloadable!]
  2. Bronars, Stephen G & Grogger, Jeff, 1994. "The Economic Consequences of Unwed Motherhood: Using Twin Births as a Natural Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(5), pages 1141-56, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. V. Joseph Hotz & Seth G. Sanders & Susan Williams McElroy, 1999. "Teenage Childbearing and Its Life Cycle Consequences: Exploiting a Natural Experiment," NBER Working Papers 7397, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. John V. Pepper & Michael J. Brien & Gregory E. Loya, 2002. "Teenage childbearing and cognitive development," Journal of Population Economics, Springer, vol. 15(3), pages 391-416. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. McClements, L. D., 1977. "Equivalence scales for children," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 191-210, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Arnaud Chevalier & Tarja K. Viitanen & Tarja K. Viitanen, 2003. "The long-run labour market consequences of teenage motherhood in Britain," Journal of Population Economics, Springer, vol. 16(2), pages 323-343, 05. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  1. Marco Francesconi, 2007. "Adult Outcomes for Children of Teenage Mothers," IZA Discussion Papers 2778, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
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