Family size, adolescents’ schooling and the Demographic Transition: Evidence from Brazil

The goal of this paper is to address whether and how the changing family sizes of cohorts of adolescents born pre- and post-demographic transition are associated with increasing schooling of Brazilian adolescents. Decomposition analyses of nationally representative data demonstrate that, although a higher proportion of post-demographic transition cohorts live in smaller families, they also suffer a larger disadvantage from being in larger families than pre-demographic transition cohorts. Additional case studies and comparative works are needed to disentangle the mechanisms behind the dynamic association between sibship size and adolescents’ educational attainment found in Brazil.adolescents, Brazil, education, family size, Latin America

Estimating the effect of adolescent fertility on educational attainment in Cape Town using a propensity score weighted regression

We estimate the effect of a teenage birth on the educational attainment of young mothers in Cape Town, South Africa. Longitudinal and retrospective data on youth from the CAPS dataset are used. We control for a number of early life and pre-fertility characteristics. We also reweight our data using a propensity score matching process to generate a more appropriate counterfactual group. Accounting for respondent characteristics reduces estimates of the effect of a teen birth on dropping out of school, successfully completing secondary school, and years of schooling attained. Our best estimates of the effect of a teen birth on high school graduation by ages 20 and 22 are -5.9 and -2.7 percentage points respectively. The former is significant at the 5% level,while the latter is not statistically significant. Thus, there appears to be some `catching up' in educational attainment by teen mothers. We find only limited support for the hypothesis that there is heterogeneity in the effect of a teen birth, depending on the actual age of the first birth. By age 22, none of the estimates for high school graduation or years of schooling are statistically significant, regardless of the specific age at which the teen birth occurred. Despite this, we do find evidence that a teen birth does correlate with reduced educational expectations. The proportion of teen mothers who report an expected final educational attainment of high school graduation or greater is about 15 percentage points lower than the matched set of non-teen mothers, but this is not manifest amongst the girls whom we know will subsequently become teen mothers at some point after these expectations are measured.

The Impact of the Zika Epidemic on Women’s Reproductive Intentions and Behaviors in Brazil

This research brief reports on a focus group study that explores how and why the Zika virus affects reproductive processes in Brazil. The authors found that both reproductive intentions and behaviors changed as a result of the Zika epidemic among women from low and high socioeconomic status groups in two areas of Brazil. The authors argue that Brazilian health officials and policymakers should reduce barriers to contraceptive use, address longstanding disparities in reproductive health services that put low-income women at disproportionate risk of an unwanted pregnancy, legalize abortion, and show respect and support to women who actively pursue pregnancy during the Zika epidemic.Population Research Cente

Family size, adolescents' schooling and the Demographic Transition: Evidence from Brazil

The goal of this paper is to address whether and how the changing family sizes of cohorts of adolescents born pre- and post-demographic transition are associated with increasing schooling of Brazilian adolescents. Decomposition analyses of nationally representative data demonstrate that, although a higher proportion of post-demographic transition cohorts live in smaller families, they also suffer a larger disadvantage from being in larger families than pre-demographic transition cohorts. Additional case studies and comparative works are needed to disentangle the mechanisms behind the dynamic association between sibship size and adolescents' educational attainment found in Brazil

The role of demographic and family change on children's schooling: Evidence from Brazil.

The structure of Brazilian families has been changing over the past three decades. As a result of the demographic transition children are sharing family resources with fewer siblings. In this dissertation, I examine the consequences of such significant changes on schooling and school enrollment of 14 year-olds. The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the effects of smaller family sizes and their gender and age composition on schooling, school enrollment and intergenerational transmission of education for cohorts of children born prior to and after significant fertility decline. The investigation provides evidence of an overall increase in school participation and schooling for younger cohorts, although it also shows persistent inefficiency in children's schooling. In order to examine whether the reasons for the improvement in children's schooling and school participation are related to decreasing family size and increasing mother's schooling I utilize nationally representative data of the PNADs (National Household Sample Survey), and estimate logistic and ordinary least squares regressions for cohorts of 14 year-olds born in 1963 and 1983. In looking at the role of social origin on children's schooling and school participation across regions and cohorts this dissertation yields two major findings: a pattern of decreasing inequality on the intergenerational transmission of education across cohorts, and a persistent trend in the relative disadvantage of northeast children. Results also suggest that fertility decline has benefited children's education through changes in children's distribution across family sizes. Further, the investigation also reveals that siblings affect children's schooling in different ways, depending on siblings' age and gender. This finding points to the importance of accounting for the role of siblings' characteristics on children's schooling and school enrollment in addition to the number of siblings. Overall, findings show that family size explains nearly as much of the change in schooling as changes in mothers' education and substantially more than family income, and calls attention to the stratification power of other unusual within-family factors, such as family size. Much of the inhibition to educational attainment has occurred and continues to occur early in life in Brazil, which reinforces the importance of family factors for educational stratification.Ph.D.DemographyIndividual and family studiesSocial SciencesSocial structureUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/128144/2/3029386.pd

Maternal age at first birth and adolescent education in Brazil

BACKGROUND Brazil has witnessed dramatic changes in its fertility patterns in recent decades. The decline to below-replacement fertility has been accompanied by increases in the proportion of children born to young mothers. Yet we know little about the well-being of children born to young mothers in Brazil. OBJECTIVE Using data from the 2006 Pesquisa Nacional de Demografia e Saúde and a quasi-natural experimental approach, this study examines the implications of maternal age at first birth for the education of Brazilian adolescents. RESULTS We find that being born to a young mother is associated with educational disadvantages in adolescence, but that these disadvantages are attenuated once we account for mothers' selection into early childbearing. We also find that, in southern Brazil, adolescents born to young mothers have poorer educational outcomes compared with their peers born to older mothers, but that in northern Brazil no such disparities exist. CONCLUSIONS Adolescent educational disadvantages associated with being born to a young mother are not an artifact of selectivity, at least in southern Brazil. Regional variation in the effect of maternal age at first birth on adolescent education suggests the important role of the extended family and the father's presence as mechanisms through which disadvantages operate

Having Children and Forming Marital Unions as Adolescents Negatively Impact Educational Outcomes for Brazilian Women

Women who have their first child during adolescence tend to have worse social and economic outcomes compared to women who have their first child later in life or those who have no children. But it is not always clear if having a child while young is the cause of poor outcomes in adulthood or if teenage mothers’ previous disadvantages are the primary cause of those outcomes. The role that early union formation plays is also unclear. This brief, from PRC faculty research associate Leticia Marteleto and PRC graduate student trainee Aida Villanueva, evaluates the causal effects of adolescent childbearing and early union on young women’s educational attainment in Brazil. Using methodologies to account for teenage mothers’ selectivity into early childbearing, the authors demonstrate the ways early childbearing and early union formation negatively impact women’s educational attainment.Population Research Cente

Scars from a Previous Epidemic: Social Proximity to Zika and Fertility Intentions during the COVID-19 Pandemic

We examine whether women’s social proximity to Zika during the Zika epidemic predicts intentions to avoid a pregnancy because of the COVID-19 pandemic either directly or indirectly via subjective assessments of the pandemic. We apply path models on unique microdata from Brazil, the country most affected by Zika and an epicenter of COVID-19, to understand whether a novel infectious disease outbreak left lasting imprints shaping fertility intentions during a subsequent novel infectious disease outbreak. Findings show that Zika social proximity is associated with fertility intentions through an indirect path related to subjective assessment of the COVID-19 pandemic. These findings emerged regardless of whether a woman herself had or suspected she had Zika and speak to the transformative consequences of novel infectious disease outbreaks that go beyond mortality and health

The short-term impacts of coronavirus quarantine in São Paulo: The health-economy trade-offs.

We analyze the trade-offs between health and the economy during the period of social distancing in São Paulo, the state hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil. We use longitudinal data with municipal-level information and check the robustness of our estimates to several sources of bias, including spatial dependence, reverse causality, and time-variant omitted variables. We use exogenous climate shocks as instruments for social distancing since people are more likely to stay home in wetter and colder periods. Our findings suggest that the health benefits of social distancing differ by levels of municipal development and may have vanished if the COVID-19 spread was not controlled in neighboring municipalities. In turn, we did not find evidence that municipalities with tougher social distancing performed worse economically. Our results also highlight that estimates that do not account for endogeneity may largely underestimate the benefits of social distancing on reducing the spread of COVID-19

Signifying Zika: heterogeneity in the representations of the virus by history of infection

Abstract: Despite having been broadly advertised by the mass media, many negative consequences of the Zika virus have been less significant than originally predicted. It is likely that after a few months from the epidemic’s onset, personal experience with the virus has altered the person’s way to deal with the disease. This study explores the relation between exposure to Zika virus and the social representation of the epidemic. More specifically, one analyzes if increased exposure to the risk of Zika infection changes the characteristics of the web of meanings surrounding the epidemic. Between August and November of 2016, 150 interviews were conducted in the municipality of Governador Valadares, Minas Gerais State, Brazil. Based on the Free Words Association Technique, data on evocations related to the Zika virus were modeled by social network analysis, allowing the characterization of the web of meanings by level of exposure to the risk of Zika infection. The analysis performed here suggests that those never infected by any disease transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito have a lesser representation, incorporating information from the media through lay thinking. In contrast to those with low levels of exposure, the social representation of people infected by Zika is associated with meanings related to the most common symptoms, such as pain, rash, and itching. Personal experience seems to shape the social representation of the disease, increasing the focus on its proximate consequences. Public campaigns designed to foster protective behavior should take into consideration the heterogeneity in the representations of this epidemic to improve adherence to preventive behavior