Minimum wages and teenage childbearing in the United States

Abstract

The minimum wage is increasingly viewed as an important, but often neglected, tool for improving public health outcomes. Using data from the period 2003-2019 and a stacked difference-in-differences regression model that accounts for dynamic and heterogeneous treatment effects, we explore the relationship between minimum wages and teenage childbearing in the United States. We find no evidence of a systematic, negative relationship between minimum wages and childbearing among 15- through 19-year-olds. Likewise, our estimates are not consistent with the argument that minimum wages are an effective policy tool for discouraging female 15- through 19-year-olds from having unprotected sex.