Estimating Long-Term Consequences of Teenage Childbearing

Abstract

Within-family estimates have been considered a remedy to selection bias in estimates of long-run consequences of teen motherhood. A major critique, however, is that heterogeneity within the family might still bias the estimates. Using Swedish data on biological sisters, I revisit the question of the consequences of teenage motherhood. My contribution lies in controlling for heterogeneity within the family by using premotherhood school performance, a characteristic that differs across sisters. My findings confirm the presumption that within-family heterogeneity can result in biased sibling estimates. Moreover, my results show that when controlling for school performance, the siblings approach and a traditional cross-section yield similar coefficients.