ABSTRACT
This study seeks to explain macrolevel drivers of adolescent fertility rate using a panel data set derived from 17 Latin American countries over a period of 16 years (1997–2012). While many studies of adolescent fertility have focused on individual-level explanations, this study explores whether adolescent fertility rate is correlated to country-level determinants, specifically legislation adoption that guarantees access to school-based sexuality education, emergency contraception, and abortion. After controlling for other country-level factors, we find that countries that have adopted legislation on school-based sexuality education and those with legal access to abortion (under one or more restrictions) have lower adolescent fertility rates.
Notes
1 Throughout this paper, adolescent fertility rate refers to the number of births per 1,000 female adolescents ages 15–19 (Hamilton & Ventura, Citation2012; UN, Citation2014b).
2 The total fertility rate represents the number of children that would be born to a woman if she were to live to the end of her childbearing years and bear children in accordance with current age-specific fertility rates (UN, Citation2010).
3 The adolescent fertility rate in the poorest quintile is between three and eight times higher than in the richest quintile (Flórez & Soto, Citation2006; UNICEF, Citation2008).
4 Paraguay is an exception. According to its policy, civil society is responsible for sexuality education (INSP, Citation2008).
5 Additional information was compiled using https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/population/abortion/abortionlaws.htm and http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/abortion/index.htm
7 http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.RUR.TOTL.ZS and http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.CACT.FE.ZS
9 http://econ.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTDEC/EXTRESEARCH/0,,contentMDK:20649465∼pagePK:64214825∼piPK:64214943∼theSitePK:469382,00.html
13 We thank the anonymous reviewer for pointing this out.
14 We thank an anonymous reviewer for pointing this out.