This paper examines the socio-economic consequences of teenage motherhood for a cohort
of British women born in 1970. We employ a number of methods to control for observed and
unobserved differences between women who gave birth as a teenager and those who do not.
We present results from conventional linear regression models, a propensity score matching
estimator, and an instrumental variable estimator that uses miscarriage data to control for
unobserved characteristics influencing selection into teenage motherhood. We consider the
effects on equivalised family income at age 30, and its constituent parts. We find significant
negative effects of teenage motherhood using methods that control only for observed
characteristics using linear regression or matching methods. However once unobserved
heterogeneity is also taken into account, the evidence for large negative effects becomes
much less clear-cut. We look at older and younger teenage mothers separately and find that
the negative effects are not necessarily stronger for teenagers falling pregnant before age 18
compared with those falling pregnant between 18 and 20, which could further suggest that
some of the negative effects of teenage motherhood are temporary.
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