PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Melissa S. Kearney
AU  - Phillip B. Levine
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.