Racial Disparities in Peer Effects on Teenage Fertility: Evidence from Using Peer Miscarriages as a Natural Experiment

Racial disparities in teenage fertility outcomes have been well documented and contribute to the persistent gap in educational achievement and labor market outcomes between whites and blacks. A considerable body of theoretical and empirical evidence suggests that health behaviors and outcomes of teens (including fertility) are, to a large extent, determined by their peers. However, racial or ethnic differences in the mechanisms of peer influence are rarely examined, and evidence of racial differences in peer influence on teen fertility is particularly limited. The extent to which the mechanisms of these peer effects in teenage fertility vary by race may explain the documented racial disparities in teen pregnancy, and can inform public policy aimed at mediating racial disparities in teenage pregnancy and childbearing. This study is the first one to address this gap by examining racial differences in peer effects and exploring mechanisms that may be driving them. To address unobserved peer selection, a major confounding factor that plagues empirical analyses of peer effects, the paper adopts the method from a recent study that used a friend’s miscarriage as a natural experiment and data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health survey (Yakusheva and Fletcher 2013). Consistent with the Yakusheva and Fletcher (2013) study, the paper finds that the peer effect on teen birth is negative (exposure to a friend’s teen childbearing experience reduces a woman’s likelihood of teen parenthood), and it is similar for (non-Hispanic) whites and blacks. However, the behavioral response varies, with white females more likely to have an abortion and black females less likely to become pregnant when a peer has a teen birth. Thus, while both racial groups appear to be learning vicariously from their pregnant friends, the behavioral responses differ. There is also some evidence that the difference is driven in part by differential access to family planning services at the school level, as blacks are 11% less likely to be in schools that offer onsite family planning counseling and services.