Late-life health effects of teenage motherhood

Background: Teenage motherhood has been associated with a host of adverse outcomes over the life cycle. Less, however, is known about the impact of teenage motherhood on health later in life. Objective: To study the impact of teenage motherhood on late-life health, using a retrospective survey of almost 12,000 women aged 50+ from 13 European countries containing detailed information on early-life circumstances. Methods: We develop linear models of the association between teenage motherhood and late-life health outcomes. We control for early-life factors parametrically as well as through propensity score matching. In addition, we employ recently developed methods to derive consistent lower-bound estimates for the causal impact of teenage motherhood on late-life health outcomes. Results: We find that teenage mothers experience substantially poorer self-reported late-life health and are more likely to display depressive symptoms than nonteenage mothers. This result remains after controlling for early-life as well contemporaneous socioeconomic conditions. Contribution: We exploit recently developed empirical techniques to derive consistent lower bounds of the causal impact of teenage motherhood on health later in life using a cross-national survey of early-life and contemporaneous socioeconomic conditions