Children of teen mothers have worse academic, labor market, and behavioral outcomes in the United States, but it is not clear whether these poor outcomes are caused by having a young mother or driven by selection into teen motherhood. Understanding the reasoning behind poor child outcomes is important for designing effective policies to improve child trajectories. Simple correlations using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79) and the NLSY79 Children and Young Adults (NLSY79CY) confirm that outcomes for children of teenage mothers are worse relative to children of older mothers. These negative relationships persist after controlling for background variables or including family fixed effects, though the magnitudes are attenuated. However, these approaches fail to fully account for selection into teen motherhood. To overcome selection, I employ an empirical strategy that relies on miscarriages to put bounds on the causal effects of teen childbearing. These bounds show that teen childbearing among mothers who choose to give birth does not cause adverse outcomes for children.

中文翻译：

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青少年生育对美国儿童结局的影响

在美国，未成年母亲的孩子在学业、劳动力市场和行为方面的结果较差，但尚不清楚这些不良结果是由于母亲年轻造成的，还是由于选择成为未成年母亲所导致的。了解不良儿童结果背后的原因对于设计有效的政策以改善儿童轨迹非常重要。使用 1979 年全国青年纵向调查 (NLSY79) 和 NLSY79 儿童和年轻成人 (NLSY79CY) 的数据进行简单相关性确认，相对于年长母亲的孩子，未成年母亲的孩子的结果更差。在控制了背景变量或包括家庭固定效应后，这些负面关系仍然存在，尽管幅度有所减弱。然而，这些方法未能充分考虑到青少年母亲的选择。为了克服选择，我采用了一种基于流产的经验策略来限制青少年生育的因果效应。这些界限表明，选择生育的母亲未成年生育不会对孩子造成不良后果。