Maybe baby
Abortion Costs, Separation, and Non-marital Childbearing
Andrew Beauchamp
Journal of Family and Economic Issues, June 2016, Pages 182-196
Abstract:
How do abortion costs affect non-marital childbearing? While greater access to abortion has the first-order effect of reducing childbearing among pregnant women, it could nonetheless lead to unintended consequences through effects on marriage market norms. Single motherhood could rise if low-cost abortion makes it easier for men to avoid marriage. This study estimated the effect of abortion costs on separation, cohabitation and marriage following a birth by exploiting miscarriage and changes in state abortion laws. There is evidence that norms responded to abortion laws as women who gave birth under abortion restrictions experienced sizable decreases in single motherhood and increased cohabitation rates. The results underscore the importance of norms regulating relationship dynamics in explaining high levels of non-marital childbearing and single motherhood.
---------------------
The Incidental Fertility Effects of School Condom Distribution Programs
Kasey Buckles & Daniel Hungerman
NBER Working Paper, June 2016
Abstract:
While the fertility effects of improving teenagers’ access to contraception are theoretically ambiguous, most empirical work has shown that access decreases teen fertility. In this paper, we consider the fertility effects of access to condoms — a method of contraception not considered in prior work. We exploit variation across counties and across time in teenagers’ exposure to condom distribution programs in schools. We find that access to condoms in schools increases teen fertility by about 10 percent. These effects are driven by communities where condoms are provided without mandated counseling.
---------------------
Peer Effects on Teenage Fertility: Social Transmission Mechanisms and Policy Recommendations
Jason Fletcher & Olga Yakusheva
American Journal of Health Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
We present instrumental variable results suggesting that the likelihood of having a teenage pregnancy is influenced by peers. We show that the instruments (peer-level teen childbearing of mothers and the average age of menarche) are plausibly exogenous across cohorts of students attending the same school. The estimates are large — a 10 percentage point increase in peer pregnancies is associated with a 2–5 percentage point greater likelihood of own-pregnancy. Peer influence is greater in environments with other policy factors that also increase teenage pregnancy rates and may operate primarily through shaping social norms rather than information or knowledge-sharing mechanisms.
---------------------
The effects of teenage childbearing on adult soft skills development
Jason Fletcher & Norma Padrón
Journal of Population Economics, July 2016, Pages 883-910
Abstract:
Research examining impacts of teenage childbearing on economic and social outcomes have focused on completed schooling and labor force outcomes. In this paper, we examine outcomes that have remained largely unexplored, soft skills and personality. We use Add Health data to construct relevant controls for teenage mothers and explore a set of measures that proxy for what is usually deemed in economics as “non-cognitive” or “soft skill” traits. We find that teenage childbearing increases impulsivity, a trait that has been found to have negative effects on a large set of outcomes and has a negative effect on other personality traits perceived as positive, such as openness to experiences. Our results remain consistent through a set of robustness checks, and we interpret our findings to suggest that adolescence may be a sensitive period for the development of soft skills and that childbearing may interrupt this process.
---------------------
Janet Rosenbaum et al.
Journal of Urban Health, June 2016, Pages 493-510
Abstract:
Reproductive coercion has been hypothesized as a cause of unprotected sex and unplanned pregnancies, but research has focused on a narrow set of potential sources of reproductive coercion. We identified and evaluated eight potential sources of reproductive coercion from the Theory of Gender and Power including economic inequality between adolescent girls and their boyfriends, cohabitation, and age differences. The sample comprised sexually active African-American female adolescents, ages 15–21. At baseline (n = 715), 6 months (n = 607), and 12 months (n = 605), participants completed a 40-min interview and were tested for semen Y-chromosome with polymerase chain reaction from a self-administered vaginal swab. We predicted unprotected sex and pregnancy using multivariate regression controlling for demographics, economic factors, relationship attributes, and intervention status using a Poisson working model. Factors associated with unprotected sex included cohabitation (incidence risk ratio (IRR) 1.48, 95 % confidence interval (1.22, 1.81)), physical abuse (IRR 1.55 (1.21, 2.00)), emotional abuse (IRR 1.31 (1.06, 1.63)), and having a boyfriend as a primary source of spending money (IRR 1.18 (1.00, 1.39)). Factors associated with unplanned pregnancy 6 months later included being at least 4 years younger than the boyfriend (IRR 1.68 (1.14, 2.49)) and cohabitation (2.19 (1.35, 3.56)). Among minors, cohabitation predicted even larger risks of unprotected sex (IRR 1.93 (1.23, 3.03)) and unplanned pregnancy (3.84 (1.47, 10.0)). Adolescent cohabitation is a marker for unprotected sex and unplanned pregnancy, especially among minors. Cohabitation may have stemmed from greater commitment, but the shortage of affordable housing in urban areas could induce women to stay in relationships for housing. Pregnancy prevention interventions should attempt to delay cohabitation until adulthood and help cohabiting adolescents to find affordable housing.
---------------------
Unconditional Prenatal Income Supplement and Birth Outcomes
Marni Brownell et al.
Pediatrics, June 2016
Methods: This study included all mother–newborn pairs (2003–2010) in Manitoba, Canada, where the mother received prenatal social assistance, the infant was born in the hospital, and the pair had a risk screen (N = 14 591). Low-income women who received the income supplement (Healthy Baby Prenatal Benefit [HBPB], n = 10 738) were compared with low-income women who did not receive HBPB (n = 3853) on the following factors: low birth weight, preterm, small and large for gestational age, Apgar score, breastfeeding initiation, neonatal readmission, and newborn hospital length of stay (LOS). Covariates from risk screens were used to develop propensity scores and to balance differences between groups in regression models; γ sensitivity analyses were conducted to assess sensitivity to unmeasured confounding. Population-attributable and preventable fractions were calculated.
Results: HBPB was associated with reductions in low birth weight (aRR, 0.71 [95% CI, 0.63–0.81]), preterm births (aRR, 0.76 [95% CI, 0.69–0.84]) and small for gestational age births (aRR, 0.90 [95% CI, 0.81–0.99]) and increases in breastfeeding (aRR, 1.06 [95% CI, 1.03–1.09]) and large for gestational age births (aRR, 1.13 [95% CI, 1.05–1.23]). For vaginal births, HBPB was associated with shortened LOS (weighted mean, 2.86; P < .0001). Results for breastfeeding, low birth weight, preterm birth, and LOS were robust to unmeasured confounding. Reductions of 21% (95% CI, 13.6–28.3) for low birth weight births and 17.5% (95% CI, 11.2–23.8) for preterm births were associated with HBPB.
Conclusions: Receipt of an unconditional prenatal income supplement was associated with positive outcomes. Placing conditions on income supplements may not be necessary to promote prenatal and perinatal health.
---------------------
Kate Keenan et al.
Psychoneuroendocrinology, September 2016, Pages 170–175
Objective: To test the effectiveness of prenatal docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) supplementation on birth outcomes and infant development in a sample of African American women with Medicaid insurance and living in the city of Pittsburgh.
Design: The Nutrition and Pregnancy Study (NAPS) is a double-blind, randomized controlled trial of prenatal DHA supplementation conducted between 2012 and 2014.
Participants: Sixty-four pregnant, African American women were enrolled at 16-21 weeks of gestation and randomized to either 450 mg/day of DHA (22:6n-3)(n = 43) or a soybean placebo (n = 21). Four women (6.3%) withdrew from the study: two participants from each study arm; complete data were obtained for 49 infants (76.5%) at the 3-month assessment.
Main Outcome and Measures: Data on birth outcomes were collected from medical records. At approximately 3 months post-partum, mothers brought their infants to the laboratory where the Bayley Scales of Infant Development (BSID-III) were administered and cortisol response to the Face-to-Face Still-Face (FFSF) paradigm was assessed.
Results: Infants of mothers who received DHA supplementation had higher birth weight (3,174 grams versus 2,890 grams) than infants of mothers receiving placebo (F [2,40] = 6.09, p = .018, eta = .36), and were more likely to have a 1-minute Apgar score greater than 8 (OR = 5.99 [95% CI = 1.25–28.75], p = .025). Infants of mothers who received DHA compared with infants of mothers receiving placebo had lower levels of cortisol in response to the FFSF paradigm (F [1,32] = 5.36, p = .018, eta = .36). None of the scores on the BSID-III differed as a function of active supplement versus placebo.
Conclusions: Infants of women living in urban, low-income environments who received DHA supplementation had more optimal birth outcomes and more modulated cortisol response to a stressor. DHA supplementation may be effective in attenuating the negative effects of prenatal stress on offspring development.
---------------------
Assortative mating and differential fertility by phenotype and genotype across the 20th century
Dalton Conley et al.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 14 June 2016, Pages 6647–6652
Abstract:
This study asks two related questions about the shifting landscape of marriage and reproduction in US society over the course of the last century with respect to a range of health and behavioral phenotypes and their associated genetic architecture: (i) Has assortment on measured genetic factors influencing reproductive and social fitness traits changed over the course of the 20th century? (ii) Has the genetic covariance between fitness (as measured by total fertility) and other traits changed over time? The answers to these questions inform our understanding of how the genetic landscape of American society has changed over the past century and have implications for population trends. We show that husbands and wives carry similar loadings for genetic factors related to education and height. However, the magnitude of this similarity is modest and has been fairly consistent over the course of the 20th century. This consistency is particularly notable in the case of education, for which phenotypic similarity among spouses has increased in recent years. Likewise, changing patterns of the number of children ever born by phenotype are not matched by shifts in genotype–fertility relationships over time. Taken together, these trends provide no evidence that social sorting is becoming increasingly genetic in nature or that dysgenic dynamics have accelerated.
---------------------
The Effect of Gender Norms in Sitcoms on Support for Access to Abortion and Contraception
Nathaniel Swigger
American Politics Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
Can ostensibly nonpolitical television programming affect policy opinions? In this article, I use a laboratory experiment to test whether the gender norms portrayed on two primetime sitcoms can alter political attitudes on gender issues, specifically access to abortion, and contraception. Though the shows in the experiment did not explicitly discuss any policy, I find that sitcoms can influence policy opinions, particularly when the show conveys a “boys will be boys” mentality toward sexual behavior. This finding has important implications for public opinion scholars because it suggests that there may not be such a thing as apolitical programming, and pop culture may have a profound, overlooked effect on public opinion.
---------------------
Austerity and Abortion in the European Union
Joana Madureira Lima et al.
European Journal of Public Health, June 2016, Pages 518-519
Abstract:
Economic hardship accompanying large recessions can lead families to terminate unplanned pregnancies. To assess whether abortions have risen during the recession, we collected crude abortion data from 2000 to 2012 from Eurostat for countries that had legal abortions and complete data. Declining trends in abortion ratios between 2000 and 2009 have been reversing. Excess abortions between 2010 and 2012 totaled 10.6 abortions per 1000 pregnancies ending in abortion or birth or 6701 additional abortions (95% CI 1190–9240) with stronger effects in younger ages. Economic shocks may increase recourse to abortion. Further research should explore causal pathways and protective factors.
---------------------
Perceived Costs and Benefits of Early Childbearing: New Dimensions and Predictive Power
Sarah Hayford et al.
Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, June 2016, Pages 83–91
Methods: Perceptions of costs and benefits of pregnancy, as well as later experiences of pregnancy, were assessed for 701 nulligravid women aged 18–22 who entered the Relationship Dynamics and Social Life study in 2008–2009 and were interviewed weekly for up to 30 months. Bivariate t tests, chi-square tests and multivariable discrete-time event history analyses were used to assess associations of perceived personal consequences of childbearing (e.g., predicted financial costs), goals in potentially competing domains (opportunity costs) and social norms with subsequent pregnancy.
Results: Twenty percent of women reported that early childbearing would have more positive than negative personal consequences. Compared with other women, those who had a pregnancy during follow-up had, at baseline, more positive perceptions of the personal consequences of pregnancy and of their friends’ approval of pregnancy, and greater desire for consumer goods. In multivariable analyses, only the scales assessing perceived personal consequences of childbearing and friends’ approval of childbearing were associated with pregnancy (odds ratios, 2.0 and 1.2, respectively). Goals in potentially competing domains were not associated with pregnancy.
Conclusions: Young women's perceptions of consequences of early childbearing predict subsequent pregnancy. That these perceptions are distinct from childbearing desires and from other dimensions of costs and benefits illustrates the complex attitudinal underpinnings of reproductive behavior.
---------------------
Ayesha Sujan et al.
Behavior Genetics, May 2016, Pages 431-456
Abstract:
We examined associations of maternal age at childbearing (MAC) with gestational age and fetal growth (i.e., birth weight adjusting for gestational age), using two genetically informed designs (cousin and sibling comparisons) and data from two cohorts, a population-based Swedish sample and a nationally representative United States sample. We also conducted sensitivity analyses to test limitations of the designs. The findings were consistent across samples and suggested that, associations observed in the population between younger MAC and shorter gestational age were confounded by shared familial factors; however, associations of advanced MAC with shorter gestational age remained robust after accounting for shared familial factors. In contrast to the gestational age findings, neither early nor advanced MAC was associated with lower fetal growth after accounting for shared familial factors. Given certain assumptions, these findings provide support for a causal association between advanced MAC and shorter gestational age. The results also suggest that there are not causal associations between early MAC and shorter gestational age, between early MAC and lower fetal growth, and between advanced MAC and lower fetal growth.