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To shed light on the determinants of teenage pregnancy, I analyze the dynamic fertility effects of Argentina's National Plan for the Prevention of Unintentional Pregnancy in Adolescence (ENIA). ENIA consisted of in-service secondary teacher training in comprehensive sex education, in-school walk-in advisements with private and confidential referrals to the health system, an expansion of long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARC) and in-service adolescent-appropriate health practitioners training. Exploiting differences in official birth records to females aged 15 to 19 across counties induced by the arbitrary timing and target of the program, I estimate significant reductions in births of 10% on average starting after 9 months from adoption —the expected length of a pregnancy. I analyze school censuses leveraging between-school, across-county and time variation, and the cointegration between treatment effects and aggregate insertion of LARC. Findings suggest that both school-based interventions and LARC expansion were necessary to explain the results, likely by relaxing adolescent-specific constraints to fertility control. I show that ENIA was effective in pro-life counties and provinces with an absolute legislative majority voting against abortion legalization. In contrast, I estimate null effects or even increases in birth rates in less-conservative treated counties in the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area where teenage pregnancy may respond to different constraints or birth intentions.
Presenter(s)
Nicolas Agustin Roig, University of Southern California
Adolescent Fertility and Reproductive Rights: Evidence from Argentina
Category
Organized Session Abstract Submission
Description
Session: [317] EDUCATION, FERTILITY, WORK AND LABOR REGULATIONS
Date: 7/6/2023
Time: 10:15 AM to 12:00 PM
Date: 7/6/2023
Time: 10:15 AM to 12:00 PM