Welfare benefits, economic opportunities, and out-of-wedlock births among black teenage girls
Duncan, G.J.; Hoffman, S.D.
Demography 27(4): 519-535
1990
ISSN/ISBN: 0070-3370 PMID: 2249743 DOI: 10.2307/2061568Document Number: 361733
This article presents a model of teenage out-of-wedlock births that incorporates the effects of both welfare and nonwelfare economic opportunities. We construct measures of the likely "medium-run" income available to a teenage girl in the event of an out-of-wedlock birth and in the absence of a birth and then estimate a logit model to determine their importance in influencing fertility behavior. The model is estimated with data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics on nearly 900 black teenagers. We find weak and statistically insignificant positive effects of Aid to Families With Dependent Children (AFDC) benefit levels and stronger and significant negative effects of economic opportunities on the probability of AFDC-related out-of-wedlock teen births.