Is teenage motherhood contagious? …

Evidence from a Natural Experiment

A paper by Karin Monstad (University of Bergen), Carol Propper (University of Bristol, Imperial College London and CEPR) and Kjell G Salvanes (Norwegian School of Economics, CESifo, CEE and IZA) published by The Centre for Market and Public Organisation, University of Bristol (Ref 11/262) and funded by the Economic and Social Research Council

Abstract

There is relatively little research on peer effects in teenage motherhood despite the fact that peer effects, and in particular social interaction within the family, are likely to be important. We estimate the impact of an elder sister’s teenage fertility on the teenage childbearing of their younger sister. To identify the peer effect we utilise an educational reform that impacted on the elder sister’s teenage fertility. Our main result is that, within families, teen births tend to be contagious and the effect is larger where siblings are close in age and for women from low-resource households.

Full paper (PDF 22pp)

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