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Title: Early Childbearing, Union Status, and Women's Health at Midlife
Resulting in 1 citation.
1. Williams, Kristi
Sassler, Sharon
Addo, Fenaba
Cooksey, Elizabeth C.
Early Childbearing, Union Status, and Women's Health at Midlife
Presented: San Francisco CA, Population Association of America Meetings, May 2012
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Population Association of America
Keyword(s): Childbearing; Childbearing, Adolescent; Childbearing, Premarital/Nonmarital; Ethnic Differences; First Birth; Health Factors; Health/Health Status/SF-12 Scale; Marital Status; Racial Differences

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Despite the prevalence of early and nonmarital childbearing, little is known about their long-term consequences for women’s health. We use data from the NLSY79 and multivariate propensity score matching to examine differences in midlife health between women who had an adolescent or young adult first birth and those whose first birth occurred at later ages. We then estimate the effect of marital status at birth and later marital history on the midlife self-assessed health of women who had an early first birth. Results suggest few negative health consequences of early childbearing except for black women who have their first birth in young adulthood. Among those who have an early first birth, marriage at birth appears beneficial for the midlife health of white women, while marriage after a nonmarital birth may pose health risks for black and Hispanic women.
Bibliography Citation
Williams, Kristi, Sharon Sassler, Fenaba Addo and Elizabeth C. Cooksey. "Early Childbearing, Union Status, and Women's Health at Midlife." Presented: San Francisco CA, Population Association of America Meetings, May 2012.