Teen Mothers and Culture

Marcén, Miriam and Bellido, Héctor (2013): Teen Mothers and Culture.

Abstract

This paper studies the impact of culture on the fertility decisions of adolescent women. To identify this effect, we use the epidemiological approach, exploiting the variations in fertility rates of teen women by ancestor’s home country. All women considered in our analysis were born in the US, and all have lived under US institutional and legal conditions. Then, differences in fertility rates of adolescent women by national origin can be considered as supporting evidence of the impact of culture. Our results show that culture has quantitatively significant impacts on the fertility decisions of adolescent women. This finding is robust to alternative specifications and to the introduction of several home country variables and individual characteristics measured when young women take the decision to have a child.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Fertility, Culture, Adolescent Women
• Subjects: J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J1 - Demographic Economics > J13 - Fertility ; Family Planning ; Child Care ; Children ; Youth; Z - Other Special Topics > Z1 - Cultural Economics ; Economic Sociology ; Economic Anthropology > Z13 - Economic Sociology ; Economic Anthropology ; Social and Economic Stratification

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