PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Kearney, Melissa S. AU - Levine, Phillip B. TI - Income Inequality and Early Nonmarital Childbearing AID - 10.3368/jhr.49.1.1 DP - 2014 Jan 01 TA - Journal of Human Resources PG - 1--31 VI - 49 IP - 1 4099 - http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/49/1/1.short 4100 - http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/49/1/1.full SO - J Hum Resour2014 Jan 01; 49 AB - 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.