Department of Sociology, New York University, New York, NY 10012
Department of Sociology, New York University, New York, NY 10012.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2022 Feb 22;119(8). doi: 10.1073/pnas.2113144119.
Women in the United States are much more likely to become mothers as teens than those in other rich countries. Teen births are particularly likely to be reported as unintended, leading to debate over whether better information on sex and contraception might lead to reductions in teen births. We contribute to this debate by providing causal evidence at the population level. Our causal identification strategy exploits county-level variation in the timing and receipt of federal funding for more comprehensive sex education and data on age-specific teen birth rates at the county level constructed from birth certificate natality data covering all births in the United States. Our results show that federal funding for more comprehensive sex education reduced county-level teen birth rates by more than 3%. Our findings thus complement the mixed evidence to date from randomized control trials on teen pregnancies and births by providing population-level causal evidence that federal funding for more comprehensive sex education led to reductions in teen births.
美国女性成为青少年母亲的比例远高于其他发达国家。青少年生育尤其可能被报告为意外怀孕，这引发了关于更好的性知识和避孕措施是否会减少青少年生育的争论。我们通过在人口层面提供因果证据来推动这场争论。我们的因果识别策略利用了县一级联邦资金用于更全面的性教育的时间和接受情况的差异，以及从涵盖美国所有出生数据的出生证明出生率数据构建的县级特定年龄青少年出生率数据。我们的结果表明，联邦资金用于更全面的性教育使县级青少年出生率降低了 3%以上。因此，我们的发现补充了迄今为止关于青少年怀孕和生育的随机对照试验的混合证据，提供了人口层面的因果证据，表明联邦资金用于更全面的性教育导致了青少年生育的减少。
