The Timing of a First Birth and High School Completion

Abstract

The relationship between the timing of a 1st birth and high school completion among women is examined using data from the US National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Employing event-history techniques we find that a 1st birth influences eventual high school graduation but not in the way previous studies have suggested. Using a modified status attainment model incorporating a life-course perspective we find that having a baby does not predict dropping out of a high school. Women who have a baby while still enrolled in school and remain in school are just as likely to graduate as women who do not. Among high school dropouts however a birth reduces the chances of eventual graduation. Whites were more likely to graduate as their 1st event followed by Blacks and Hispanics. Black women were more likely to have a baby while enrolled in school than either Hispanics or Whites. Among dropouts all groups are more likely to have a baby than to graduate. For those who had a baby and dropped out the order of the events made no difference on the graduation probability. The timing of a birth in schooling also had little impact on the probability of eventual graduation. Institutional and societal changes may have weakened or changed the relationship between adolescent childbearing and school-leaving in recent years.