Health outcomes for children born to teen mothers in Cape Town, South Africa

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dc.creatorBranson, Nicola
dc.creatorArdington, Cally
dc.creatorLeibbrandt, Murray
dc.date2012-12-03T12:07:14Z
dc.date2012-12-03T12:07:14Z
dc.date2011-03
dc.descriptionThis paper analyzes the effect of being born to a teen mother on child health outcomes in South Africa using propensity score reweighting. Exploiting the longitudinal nature of the Cape Area Panel Study, we estimate the probability of being a teen mother conditional on pre-childbirth characteristics. We use this score to construct a weighted counterfactual group of children born to mothers over nineteen whose pre-childbirth characteristics are very similar to the teen mother sample except for their age at the birth of their first child. Our reweighted regressions indicate that being born to a teen mother has some significant adverse effects on child health, especially among Coloured children. In particular, children born to teens are more likely to be underweight at birth and to be stunted with the negative effect being double the size for Coloureds than Africans. No negative impact of teenage childbearing is found on head circumference at birth or the incidence of incomplete first year immunizations. These results remain robust even when we simulate influential unobservable effects in both the reweighting equation and the outcome equation.
dc.identifierLink to journal article
dc.identifierhttp://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/679737
dc.identifier.ris TY - DB - OpenUCT DP - University of Cape Town KW - Child heatlh KW - Teen birth KW - Teen fertility KW - CAPS KW - Longitudinal data LK - https://open.uct.ac.za PB - University of Cape Town PY - T1 - Health outcomes for children born to teen mothers in Cape Town, South Africa TI - Health outcomes for children born to teen mothers in Cape Town, South Africa UR - ER - en_ZA
dc.language.isoeng
dc.publisherSouthern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit
dc.publisher.departmentSALDRUen_ZA
dc.publisher.facultyFaculty of Commerceen_ZA
dc.publisher.institutionUniversity of Cape Town
dc.subjectChild heatlh
dc.subjectTeen birth
dc.subjectTeen fertility
dc.subjectCAPS
dc.subjectLongitudinal data
dc.titleHealth outcomes for children born to teen mothers in Cape Town, South Africa
dc.typeOther / General
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