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Title: Adolescent Premarital Childbearing: Do Opportunity Costs Matter?
Resulting in 1 citation.
1. Lundberg, Shelly
Plotnick, Robert D.
Adolescent Premarital Childbearing: Do Opportunity Costs Matter?
Discussion Paper No. 926-90, Institute for Research on Poverty, University of Wisconsin - Madison, September 1990
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Institute for Research on Poverty (IRP), University of Wisconsin - Madison
Keyword(s): Abortion; Adolescent Fertility; Aid for Families with Dependent Children (AFDC); Behavioral Differences; Childbearing, Premarital/Nonmarital; Family Planning; Household Composition; Medicaid/Medicare; Racial Differences; Religion; State Welfare; Welfare

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

This study develops an empirical model of adolescent premarital childbearing which emphasizes the influence of opportunity costs. The model estimates determinants of premarital pregnancy, the choice to abort or carry to teem, and whether a marriage occurs before the birth. The sample is from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. The long-run opportunity costs are the predicted effects of premarital childbearing on own future wages and welfare benefits. State variables on abortion and family planning policy and availability, which are proxies for the costs of abortion and avoiding pregnancy, represent short-run costs. For white adolescents, the long-run wage measure has statistically significant effects on abortion and pregnancy outcomes that are consistent with theoretical expectations. Their behavior also is associated with welfare, abortion, and family planning policy variables in directions consistent with an opportunity-cost model of behavior. Black adolescents' behavior shows no association with the opportunity-cost or policy variables. This may be a function of sample size. It may also be that there are important unmeasured racial differences in the factors that influence fertility and marital behavior.
Bibliography Citation
Lundberg, Shelly and Robert D. Plotnick. "Adolescent Premarital Childbearing: Do Opportunity Costs Matter?" Discussion Paper No. 926-90, Institute for Research on Poverty, University of Wisconsin - Madison, September 1990.