Table 7a

Impact of Marriage Law on Births by Age of Mother

Percent of Total Births by Age of Mother
Under 15
1		15–19
2		20–24
3
Nonwhites
    Difference-in-difference estimate (post X treatment)−0.064
[0.046]		−0.765
[0.316]**		0.556
[0.334]
    Treatment (=1 if Mississippi or neighbors, 0 otherwise)−0.119
[0.024]***		−0.92
[0.150]***		−2.124
[0.169]***
    Post (=1 if year > 1957)0.066
[0.030]*		0.301
[0.336]		−0.683
[0.336]*
Mean of dependent variable
    R-squared0.660.830.83
    Observations125125125
Whites
    Difference-in-difference estimate (post X treatment)−0.023
[0.006]***		−0.153
[0.214]		0.772
[0.247]**
    Treatment (=1 if Mississippi or neighbors, 0 otherwise)−0.014
[0.003]***		−0.33
[0.115]**		1.39
[0.133]***
    Post (=1 if year > 1957)0.04
[0.014]**		2.331
[0.222]***		1.646
[0.219]***
Mean of dependent variable
    R-squared0.680.960.94
    Observations129129129

  • Notes: Dependent variable is percent of total births that are born to mothers of the relevant age group. Data are from the Vital Statistics, for years 1952–64. Treatment group is Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, and Tennessee. Arkansas did not report statistics for this variable during this period. The control group consists of Florida, North Carolina, Kentucky, Virginia, West Virginia, and Texas. Georgia, Delaware, and the District of Columbia did not consistently report this variable for these years. Regressions reflect estimation of Equation 1 in the paper. Only controls used are state and year fixed effects.

  • ↵* significant at 10 percent;

  • ↵** significant at 5 percent;

  • ↵*** significant at 1 percent, robust standard errors, clustered at the state level