Previous studies in developed countries have found a micro-level association between teenage fertility and girls’ educational attainment but researchers still debate the policy implications of these associations. First, are these associations causal? Second, are they substantively important enough that policy efforts to reduce unintended pregnancy among teens would pay off in terms of narrowing national gender gaps in education? Third, if such policies do pay off, under what contexts are the payoffs likely to be most important?

This paper focuses on the latter two questions. We begin by proposing a contextual hypothesis to explain cross-national variation in the gender-equity payoffs from reducing unintended teen fertility. We then test this hypothesis, using DHS data from 38 countries.