Adolescent fertility and high school completion in Chile: Exploring gender differences

Abstract

This study has two objectives: first, to estimate the effect of adolescent fertility on high school completion for Chilean adolescents, considering selectivity due to socioeconomic background and prior academic achievement, and, second, to explore the gender differences that exist in this effect. METHODSWe use propensity score weighting and regression adjustment to estimate the average treatment effect on the treated groups. We employ a rich dataset built on several administrative sources, covering a cohort of students attending publicly funded schools from 2011 to 2018. RESULTSConsidering the samples of men and women separately, we find that a teenage girl who experiences adolescent fertility is 13% less likely to complete high school, whereas the corresponding probability for a teenage boy is only 3%. As compared to boys, girls who experience adolescent fertility also have higher probabilities of delayed high school graduation and dropping out of school. CONCLUSIONSOur analyses indicate that the detrimental effect of adolescent fertility on high school completion is larger for girls than boys in Chile, after taking into consideration the selectivity due to socioeconomic origin and prior academic performance. CONTRIBUTIONThis is the first study in Chile, and probably the first in Latin America, that directly estimates the difference in the effect of adolescent fertility on educational outcomes for young men and women, considering issues of endogeneity due to treatment selection.

Access to Higher Education and Adolescent Fertility in Chile

“…In summary, our results indicate that adolescent fertility is more strongly associated with a lower probability of enrollment in a higher education program for men than for women, and particularly for students who graduate from high school on time, who make up the majority of our sample. This finding stands in contrast to previous research in Chile, which has found that adolescent fertility more greatly affects women's schooling outcomes than men's (Berthelon and Kruger 2017; Berthelon, Kruger, and Eberhard 2017; Salinas and Jorquera‐Samter 2022).…”

“…Only two studies have analyzed gender differences in the effects of adolescent fertility on educational attainment in Chile. These studies find a more pronounced impact of adolescent fertility on the likelihood of dropping out of secondary school for women (Salinas and Jorquera‐Samter 2021, 2022), which aligns with prior descriptive research in Chile arguing that traditional gender views play a role in the effect of adolescent fertility over the life course (Molina et al. 2004; Madrid 2006).…”

“…Finally, we note that our estimates of the effect of adolescent fertility on higher education initiation are larger than estimates of the effect of teen fertility on the probability of completing secondary education, both for men and women (see Salinas and Jorquera-Samter, 2022). Consequently, adolescent fertility may harm the chances of young people to continue higher education more than their chances of completing secondary school.…”

“…In a separate study, Berthelon, Kruger, and Eberhard (2017) use propensity score matching to estimate that the likelihood of completing secondary school is 23 percent lower for women who had a child in adolescence compared to women who did not. More recently, Salinas and Jorquera‐Samter (2021, 2022) study the effect of adolescent fertility on the probability of secondary school dropout and find that the effect of adolescent fertility is more detrimental to girls than boys in terms of secondary school completion, with a reduced likelihood ranging from 13 percent to 16 percent for girls and from 3 percent to 10 percent for boys, respectively.…”