Gallen, Y., Joensen, J.S., Johansen, E.R., Veramendi, G.F.: The Labor Market Returns to Delaying Pregnancy
We estimate the effect of children on the careers of women in two settings with quasi-random variation in the timing of the pregnancy. First, we study the impact of unplanned pregnancies identified from failures of long-acting reversible contraceptives. Second, we study the impact of planned pregnancies among women receiving fertility treatments, identified from the success of the first treatment. Estimating the relative impact of planned and unplanned births is complicated by the combination of dynamic compliance (i.e., later pregnancies in the control group) and dynamic treatment effects. We develop an estimation strategy to compare these impacts and account for differences in the timing of children in the control groups. Using linked health and labor market data from Sweden, we find that planned pregnancies have an initially large and negative effect on income but this dissipates by five years after birth with no detrimental effect on occupation progression. In contrast, unplanned pregnancies halt women’s career progression resulting in income losses of 30% by six years after the initial contraceptive failure. The detrimental effects of unplanned pregnancies are larger for younger women and women enrolled in schooling, suggesting that unplanned births are particularly disruptive early in the career.
Johansen, E.R., Nielsen, H.S., Verner, M.: Teenage mothers and the next generation: Benefits of delay? (R&R Review of Economics of the Household)
This paper investigates whether delaying motherhood beyond the teenage years benefits children. We account for selection into teenage motherhood in two parallel ways: We compare children with their cousins and we exploit miscarriages as a natural experiment that induces some women to postpone childbirth. Across the two strategies, we find no or limited effects of teenage motherhood on children’s health and educational outcomes. When we use women delaying motherhood to their early twenties as a counterfactual for teenage mothers, we show suggestive evidence that the effects of such delays are nil across outcomes for both strategies.
Johansen, E. R., Mølbæk, L. B., Nandrup, A. B. (2016): A note on parental response to class size: Do parents shy away from large classes
This note studies school transfers as parental response to class size. Using Danish administrative data on pupils in grades 1–3, we find that high-income parents are less likely to transfer their children from larger classes, suggesting that some parents favor larger classes despite well-established negative effects on achievement.
Johansen, E. R. (2021): Relative Age for Grade and Adolescent Risky Health Behavior, Journal of Health Economics, 76.
URL: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhealeco.2021.102438
Johansen, E.R., Nielsen, H.S., Verner, M. (2020): Long-Term Consequences of Early Parenthood, Journal of Marriage and Family, 82(4), pp. 1286-1303.
URL: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jomf.12634
Gørtz, M., Johansen, E.R., Simonsen, M. (2018): Academic Achievement and the Gender Composition of Preschool Staff, Labour Economics, 55, pp. 241-258.
URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S092753711830109X
HPV Vaccination, Health Care Utilization and Risky Health Behavior of Adolescent Girls (with M. Humlum)
Health and Inequality