Factors Influencing Age of a Mother at the Birth of Her First Child

Faculty Sponsor

Sara Gundersen

College

Arts and Sciences

Discipline(s)

Econometrics / Economics

Presentation Type

Poster Presentation

Symposium Date

Spring 2021

Abstract

Across the globe, women are waiting longer to have their first child, and this trend has appeared especially among developing countries (The Lancet, 2016). There have been investigations into the role of education in affecting the age of a mother when giving birth to her first child, but the influences of many other variables – like the role of conflict in a country, income of a family, and residing in a rural or urban location – are mostly unexplored (Glick, 2015). In this study, I explore the relationship between societal and demographic factors that influence the age a mother gives birth to her first child, specifically the significance of education, location, and wealth, in the small African nation of Sierra Leone. I use information from the 2014 Sierra Leone Labor Force Survey along with SAS regressions to determine the significance of competing influences that affect the age of a mother when she has her first child.

Biographical Information about Author(s)

Sarah Messerschmidt is a junior undergraduate student at Valparaiso University that is double majoring in International Economics & Cultural Affairs as well as German, with a Business minor.

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