This article investigates the causal relationship between women's schooling and fertility by exploiting variation generated by the removal of school fees in Ethiopia. The increase in schooling caused by the reform is identified using both geographic variation in the intensity of its impact and temporal variation generated by the timing of the…

Monitoring sexual activity and contraceptive use among U.S. adolescents is important for understanding differences in their risk of pregnancy. In 2013, the U.S. birth rate for teenagers aged 15-19 dropped 57% from its peak in 1991, paralleling a decline in the teen "pregnancy" rate. But these rates are still higher than those in other…

The past four decades have seen a rapid decline in marriage rates and a rapid increase in nonmarital births. These changes have had at least three worrisome effects on children. Scholars disagree about the magnitude of these effects, but surveys and other research evidence appear to definitively establish that the nation has more poverty, more…

This paper investigates the effect of the supply of birth control methods on fertility behavior by examining Romania's 23-year period of pronatalist policies. Following the lifting of the restrictions in 1989 the immediate decrease in fertility was 30 percent. Women who spent most of their reproductive years under the restrictive regime…

We investigate possible explanations for the large decline in U.S. teen childbearing that occurred in the twenty years following the 1991 peak. Our review of previous evidence and the results of new analyses presented here leads to the following main set of observations. First, the observed decline in teen childbearing is even more surprising…

This retrospective reviews the policies that affect the fertility of American women, both policies designed to alter fertility intentionally as well as those that change childbearing unintentionally. Becker's seminal work on the economics of fertility serves as the theoretical foundation for this literature. After describing Becker's economic…

When it comes to making decisions about sex, teens today are doing far better than they were 20 years ago. Fewer teens are having sex, and among those who are, more teens are using contraception. The happy result is that teen pregnancy and birth rates have declined dramatically. Despite this extraordinary progress, teen pregnancy and childbearing…

"The State of the World's Children 2014 In Numbers: Every Child Counts" highlights the critical role data and monitoring play in realizing children's rights. Credible data, disseminated effectively and used correctly, make it possible to target interventions that help right the wrong of exclusion. Data do not, of themselves, change the…

Objectives: To outline the prevalence and disparities of teen pregnancy among school-aged urban minority youth, causal pathways through which nonmarital teen births adversely affects academic achievement, and proven or promising approaches for schools to address this problem. Methods: Literature review. Results: In 2006, the birth rate among 15-…

Teen childbearing affects young people at both ends of childhood. When teens have children, their own health may be jeopardized and their chances to build productive lives are often diminished. Compared to women who postpone childbearing until they are older, teenage mothers are more likely to drop out of school and to live in poverty. At the same…

Isabel Sawhill, Adam Thomas, and Emily Monea believe that given the well-documented costs of nonmarital births to the children and parents in fragile families, as well as to society as a whole, policy makers' primary goal should be to reduce births to unmarried parents. The authors say that the nation's swiftly rising nonmarital birth rate has…

To mark the 25th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, this edition of "The State of the World's Children" calls for brave and fresh thinking to address age-old problems that still affect the world's most disadvantaged children. The report is inspired by the work of innovators around the world--who are pushing…

After a 14-year decline, the teen birth rate increased in 2006, according to data from the National Center for Health Statistics. Between 2005 and 2006, the teen birth rate rose 3.5 percent, from 40.5 to 41.9 births per 1,000 females aged 15-19. The number of teen births rose by 20,843, from 414,593 to 435,436 births, the largest annual increase…

Women who dropped out of family planning clinic services in Maryland used contraceptives for a considerable time beyond their last visit. However, unplanned pregnancies occurred, suggesting that contraceptive use was either inconsistent or ineffective. Thus, education and counseling must be systematic and effective during the first clinic visit.…

This book provides an overview of family planning and fertility in the United States, from the number of babies women have to the risks they face in having them and the measures they choose to avoid pregnancy, to the dollars that would be saved with fewer unwanted pregnancies. Based on the social science literature through mid-1997, which is cited…