Leonard M. Lopoo (Syracuse University) Sara McLanahan (Princeton University) Irwin Garfinkel (Columbia University)
Abstract
We investigate the influence of changes in demography, the strength of the economy, and social policies on teen birth rates in the U.S. from 1981 to 1999, a period of wildly fluctuating rates. We find that demographic and social policy changes largely counteracted one another during this period with the growth in the Hispanic population as the primary factor driving rates up, and the tightening of the Child Support Enforcement program as the primary factor pushing rates down. Our results suggest that if the demographic variables that we measure had remained at their 1981 levels, teens would have had 340,000 (or 3.6 percent) fewer births than were observed over this period. At the same time, if welfare benefits and Child Support Enforcement expenditures had remained at their 1981 levels, teens would have had almost 484,000 (or 5.2 percent) more births than observed. Although related to teen birth rates, the economy does not appear to have played much of a role in the trend in teen birth rates.
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Publisher Info
Paper provided by Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Center for Research on Child Wellbeing. in its series Working Papers with number
960.
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