Staying in the classroom and out of the maternity ward? The effect of compulsory schooling laws on teenage births

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Black, Sandra E.; Devereux, Paul J.; Salvanes, Kjell G.
• 署名单位: University of California System; University of California Los Angeles; National Bureau of Economic Research; University College Dublin; IZA Institute Labor Economics; Norwegian School of Economics (NHH)
• 刊物名称: ECONOMIC JOURNAL
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0013-0133
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0297.2008.02159.x
• 发表日期: 2008
• 页码: 1025-1054
• 关键词: consequences; childbearing; attendance; education; crime; COSTS

摘要

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.