This study investigates gender differences in the association between adolescent fertility and the likelihood of initiating higher education among young Chilean men and women. We adopt an entropy balancing strategy to estimate the association between adolescent fertility and the likelihood of starting higher education while accounting for potential selection into early childbearing due to socioeconomic status and prior academic achievement. We use data from official national registers that cover a cohort of Chilean students who attended publicly funded schools and who successfully completed secondary schooling between 2011 and 2022. Our results indicate that adolescent mothers are 15 percentage points less likely to initiate higher education than their peers who did not give birth during adolescence. In comparison, teenage fathers are 20 percentage points less likely to do so than their childless counterparts. Our findings stand in contrast to previously identified disadvantage patterns for secondary school completion, whereby adolescent fertility more significantly hinders schooling completion for women relative to men. We contend that this reversal may be related to traditional gender-role expectations in Chile, which encourage young fathers to act as providers and, therefore, may be prevented from continuing on their education path into tertiary studies.

中文翻译：

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智利的高等教育机会和青少年生育能力

本研究调查了智利年轻男性和女性青少年生育能力与接受高等教育的可能性之间的性别差异。我们采用熵平衡策略来估计青少年生育率与开始接受高等教育的可能性之间的关联，同时考虑到由于社会经济地位和先前的学业成就而可能选择早育。我们使用来自官方国家登记册的数据，该登记册涵盖了一群在 2011 年至 2022 年间就读公立学校并成功完成中学教育的智利学生。我们的结果表明，青春期母亲接受高等教育的可能性比同龄人低 15 个百分点。青春期没有生育。相比之下，十几岁的父亲这样做的可能性比没有孩子的父亲低 20 个百分点。我们的研究结果与之前确定的中学毕业的不利模式形成鲜明对比，即相对于男性，青少年生育率更显着地阻碍女性完成学业。我们认为，这种逆转可能与智利传统的性别角色期望有关，这种期望鼓励年轻的父亲充当养家糊口的角色，因此可能会阻止他们继续接受高等教育。