Consequences of Teen Parenthood for Teen Mothers and Fathers in Canada

Teen motherhood is associated with a variety of adverse consequences in prior literature, even after controlling for selection into teen motherhood. The experience of parenthood, however, is highly gendered, suggesting that the consequences of teenage parenthood might differ for teen mothers and teen fathers. This paper examines gender differences in the long-term human capital, health, and wellbeing consequences of teen parenthood in Canada. OLS and logistic regression models with inverse-probability of treatment weights were estimated using pooled data from the 2006, 2011, and 2017 Canadian General Social Surveys. Models estimate the approximate causal consequences of teen motherhood and fatherhood for measures reported between the ages of 30 and 49. We find that becoming a parent as a teen is similarly detrimental for both women and men in terms of high school completion, postsecondary attendance, personal income, self-reported health, and life satisfaction, even 10 to 35 years after becoming a teen parent. These results, however, should be interpreted with caution because they may be affected by the underreporting of children by men. The findings highlight the importance of considering both teen mothers and teen fathers in efforts to isolate the adverse effects of teen parenthood, and that in Canada, teen fathers face similar disadvantages as teen mothers in these outcomes in their early adulthood to midlife.