The Impact of an Early First Birth on Young Women's Educational Attainment

Women who become mothers at an early age tend to accumulate fewer years of schooling than those who delay entry into motherhood. In this paper, the impact of age at first birth on the process of educational attainment of young women is examined using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Young Women for the period 1968 to 1972. The results of this analysis indicate that (1) the younger the age at first birth, the fewer years of schooling completed, other things equal; (2) the effect of most determinants of educational attainment depends on age at first birth; and (3) the educational decrement caused by an early birth is about half as large for young black women as for their white counterparts.