Consequences of Teenage Childbearing on Child Outcomes in the United States

Abstract

Children of teen mothers have worse academic, labor market, and behavioral outcomes in the United States, but it is not clear whether these poor outcomes are caused by having a young mother or driven by selection into teen motherhood. Understanding the reasoning behind poor child outcomes is important for designing effective policies to improve child trajectories. Simple correlations using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79) and the NLSY79 Children and Young Adults (NLSY79CY) confirm that outcomes for children of teenage mothers are worse relative to children of older mothers. These negative relationships persist after controlling for background variables or including family fixed effects, though the magnitudes are attenuated. However, these approaches fail to fully account for selection into teen motherhood. To overcome selection, I employ an empirical strategy that relies on miscarriages to put bounds on the causal effects of teen childbearing. These bounds show that teen childbearing among mothers who choose to give birth does not cause adverse outcomes for children.