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Income Inequality and Early Nonmarital Childbearing
- Journal of Human Resources
- University of Wisconsin Press
- Volume 49, Number 1, Winter 2014
- pp. 1-31
- 10.1353/jhr.2014.0001
- Article
- Additional Information
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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 lower-tail 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 decision-making that facilitates the interpretation of our results.