Intra- and intergenerational consequences of teenage childbearing in two Brazilian cities: exploring the role of age at menarche and sexual debut

Eduardo L.G. Rios-Neto, CEDEPLAR, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais

The paper is divided into three parts. In the first part, we describe the connection among three key events in the transition to female adulthood. In the second part, we investigate the impact of teenage childbearing on several women’s outcomes. In the third part, we investigate the impact of teenage childbearing on their children’s wellbeing, when teenage childbearing bears intergenerational consequences. In the case of the two Brazilian cities under study, the impact of early childbearing on women’s fate is negative on educational attainment and marital stability. Direct income effects were not observed. If the intragenerational impact of early childbearing was negative, the intergenerational effect was not statistically significant. The only negative effect was observed on children’s education, but this effect disappeared in the third estimation, in which age at menarche is used as an instrumental variable.