Late-life health effects of teenage motherhood

Abstract

BACKGROUND Teenage motherhood has been associated with a host of adverse outcomes over the life cycle. Less, however, is known about the impact of teenage motherhood on health later in life. OBJECTIVE To study the impact of teenage motherhood on late-life health, using a retrospective survey of almost 12,000 women aged 50+ from 13 European countries containing detailed information on early-life circumstances. METHODS We develop linear models of the association between teenage motherhood and late-life health outcomes. We control for early-life factors parametrically as well as through propensity score matching. In addition, we employ recently developed methods to derive consistent lower-bound estimates for the causal impact of teenage motherhood on late-life health outcomes. RESULTS We find that teenage mothers experience substantially poorer self-reported late-life health and are more likely to display depressive symptoms than nonteenage mothers. This result remains after controlling for early-life as well contemporaneous socioeconomic conditions. CONTRIBUTION We exploit recently developed empirical techniques to derive consistent lower bounds of the causal impact of teenage motherhood on health later in life using a cross-national survey of early-life and contemporaneous socioeconomic conditions.

Social normative and social network factors associated with adolescent pregnancy: a cross-sectional study of 176 villages in rural Honduras

“…Similar to the perpetuation of poverty, adolescent childbirth becomes both a consequence and driver of gender inequality. Overall, adolescent fertility is associated with poor physical and mental health outcomes, as well as enduring social and economic disadvantages for individuals, their families, and nations [11][12][13].…”

Childhood Socioeconomic Status and Late-Adulthood Mental Health: Results From the Survey on Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe

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Centralising acute stroke care within clinical practice in the Netherlands: lower bounds of the causal impact

“…For example, Bellows & Miquel (2009) [36]. For that case, Angelini & Mierau (2018) show thatβ Ã then reduces to 2β F −β R , which is a straightforward way to assessβ Ã without further knowledge of the underlying R-squared [37]. Alternatively, Oster (2017) suggest R MAX equals 1.3 × R F [35], determined from published randomized controlled trials in leading economic journals between 2008 and 2013.…”

“…This is could suggest that higher pre-hospital costs for the centralised system are offset by a decreased length-of-stay in the hospital and avoiding institutional care after hospital discharge due to improved patients' health. These results suggest that centralising services could contribute to further improving healthcare, as short-term stroke severity is an important predictor of QoL years after the stroke [38]. From a societal perspective it would be interesting to see whether centralisation of acute stroke care would lead to a shift in costs associated with productivity, informal care and additional transport for caregivers.…”

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