The impact of sex education mandates on teenage pregnancy: International evidence

Soto, Juan; Paton, David; Bullivant, Stephen

Abstract

To date most studies of the impact of school-based sex education have focused either on specific, local interventions or experiences at a national level. In this paper we use a new cross-country dataset to explore the extent to which laws on sex education affect teenage pregnancy rates in developed countries. We find some evidence that laws mandating sex education in schools are associated with higher rates of teenage fertility. Parental opt out laws may minimise adverse effects of sex education mandates for younger teens. The estimated effects of mandatory sex education are robust to some but not all of our specifications designed to tease out causality. Taken together, changes in national laws relating to sexual health are unable to explain the significant declines in teenage pregnancy rates which have been observed in many developed countries in recent years.

Citation

Soto, J., Paton, D., & Bullivant, S. (2020). The impact of sex education mandates on teenage pregnancy: International evidence. Health Economics, 29(7), 790-807. https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.4021

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Mar 26, 2020
• Online Publication Date: Apr 24, 2020
• Publication Date: 2020-07
• Deposit Date: Mar 30, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 25, 2021
• Journal: Health Economics
• Print ISSN: 1057-9230
• Electronic ISSN: 1099-1050
• Publisher: Wiley
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 29
• Issue: 7
• Pages: 790-807
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.4021
• Keywords: sex education; abortion; teenage pregnancy; panel data; health policy
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/4224657
• Publisher URL: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/hec.4021
• Additional Information: Received: 2019-08-28; Accepted: 2020-03-26; Published: 2020-04-24