JHR Abstracts Volume 34, 1999

Volume 34, Number 3 (Summer) 1999

Klepinger, Daniel H., Shelly Lundberg, and Robert Plotnick. 1999. "How Does Adolescent Fertility Affect the Human Capital and Wages of Young Women?" Journal of Human Resources 34(3):421-448.

We estimate the relationship between teenage childbearing, human capital investment, and wages in early adulthood, using a sample of women from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and a large set of potential instruments for fertility-principally state and county-level indicators of the costs of fertility and fertility control. Adolescent fertility substantially reduces years of formal education and teenage work experience and, for white women only, early adult work experience. Through reductions in human capital, teenage childbearing has a significant effect on market wages at age 25. Our results suggest that public policies which reduce teenage childbearing are likely to have positive effects on the economic well-being of many young mothers.

Daniel Klepinger is Research Scientist at the Center for Public Health Research and Evaluation, Battelle Memorial Institute, Shelly Lundberg is Professor of Economics at the University of Washington, and Robert Plotnick is Professor of Public Affairs and Social Work at the University of Washington. This study was supported by NIH grant HD29405-01A1. The authors thank Valerie Cerra, Paul Higgins and Anjanette Nelson-Wally for research assistance, and David Ribar, Richard Startz, participants at the University of Washington/Battelle Memorial Institute Demography Seminar, and an anonymous referee for helpful comments. The data used in this article can be obtained beginning January 2000 through December 2003 from Daniel Klepinger, Battelle Memorial Institute, 4000 NE 41^st St., Seattle, WA 98105. Variables provided by the Alan Guttmacher Institute can be released only with prior permission from AGI; contact the authors at the address above for information.

US ISSN 0022-166X

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