TY - JOUR T1 - Income Inequality and Early Nonmarital Childbearing JF - Journal of Human Resources JO - J Hum Resour SP - 1 LP - 31 DO - 10.3368/jhr.49.1.1 VL - 49 IS - 1 AU - Melissa S. Kearney AU - Phillip B. Levine Y1 - 2014/01/01 UR - http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/49/1/1.abstract N2 - Using individual-level data from the United States, we empirically investigate the role of lower-tail income inequality in determining rates of early nonmarital childbearing among low socioeconomic status (SES) women. We present robust evidence that young low-SES women are more likely to have a nonmarital birth when they live in places with larger lowertail income inequality, all else held constant. We calculate that differences in the level of inequality are able to explain a sizeable share of the geographic variation in teen fertility rates. We propose a model of adolescent decisionmaking that facilitates the interpretation of our results. ER -