Job Market Paper - Compulsory Education and Teenage Motherhood

Can education policy reduce the incidence of teenage motherhood? This paper
uses data from the largest UK household-level survey to investigate the impact of
a change in legislation, which increased the duration of compulsory schooling, on
the timing of fertility using a regression discontinuity design. The findings indicate
strong evidence that the schooling reform induced a downwards impact on fertility
not only at the new school-leaving age, but also exerted a non-monotonic effect
throughout the teenage years. Overall the analysis suggests that the increase in
mandatory education caused a postponement of fertility with the influence of the
reform dissipating after age 20.