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The Fracking Boom, Labor Structure, and Adolescent Fertility

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  • Andrew L. Owen

    (Northwestern University
    University of Kentucky)

Abstract

Demographers have applied various sociological and economic theories of fertility in attempts to clarify the dynamics of adolescent fertility, particularly its sharp decline in the United States over the last 20 years. Using the restricted detailed natality file from the National Center for Health Statistics, I analyze the impact of the oil and gas hydraulic fracturing boom in North Dakota and Montana on adolescent female fertility rates, testing pro-cyclical, mating market, and adult formation theories of adolescent fertility. Restricted difference-in-differences models demonstrate a positive and significant association between the oil boom and increased births in adolescent women aged 15–19, but more fully specified models demonstrate changing economic and social conditions appear to be driving the effect. Leveraging the exogenous shock of a bust in oil prices, a comparative interrupted time-series regression demonstrates a sizeable year-over-year decrease in adolescent female fertility for the shale region. Fertility rate changes in this age group do not appear attributable to changing racial or ethnic composition of oil-producing counties. Instead, increases in adolescent female fertility are largely driven by increasing births among white teens. The proximate mechanism driving this effect is the increasing employed share of young men aged 14–24, lending support to a substrand of adult formation and mating market explanations of adolescent female fertility.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrew L. Owen, 2022. "The Fracking Boom, Labor Structure, and Adolescent Fertility," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 41(5), pages 2211-2231, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:poprpr:v:41:y:2022:i:5:d:10.1007_s11113-022-09722-6
    DOI: 10.1007/s11113-022-09722-6
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