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The Review of Economics and Statistics Vol. 76 No. 3 1994

Teenage Fertility and High School Completion

David C. Ribar

open access

Abstract

This paper uses 1979-85 data on women from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to examine the eco-nomic, sociological, and institutional antecedents of adolescent childbearing and high school completion and to analyze the effect of early childbearing on school completion. Fertility and school completion are modeled as dichotomous outcomes, and their determinants are estimated using a bivariate probit specification. The paper finds evidence that adolescent childbearing is an endogenous determinant of high school completion and that failing to account for this endogeneity leads to an over-estimate of the schooling consequences of early childbearing.

DOI
10.2307/2109967
Volume
76
Issue
3
Pages
413
Sources
openalex crossref

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