Never-married motherhood is associated with worse educational outcomes for children. But this association may reflect other factors that also determine family structure, rather than causal effects. We use incarceration rates for men as instrumental variables in estimating the effect of never-married motherhood on the high school dropout rate of…

Data provided in this study encompass topics such as: labor force participation, unemployment, marital status, women heads of families, working mothers, the children of working mothers, education, employment status of high school dropouts, occupations, full-time and full-year workers, and earnings. Minority workers (data refers to all races other…