THE EFFECTS OF TEENAGE FERTILITY ON YOUNG-ADULT CHILDBEARING

Numerous studies of fertility behavior find that an early age at first birth increases the rate of subsequent childbearing. Typically, howev er, these studies do not account for the possibility of serial correla tion in the unobserved determinants of fertility. Using 1979-1992 indi vidual-level data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, this paper employs the Method of Simulated Moments to estimate panel probi t models of annual birth outcomes. The panel probit models account for several alternative sources of serial correlation. Estimation reveals that once serial correlation is taken into account, the subsequent fe rtility effects of early childbearing are either statistically elimina ted or reversed.