Pathways from adolescent pregnancy to precarious employment: Distinguishing the effects of abortion, miscarriage, and live birth

While adolescent pregnancy is widely recognized as a marker of early-life disadvantage, less is known about its long-term occupational consequences. This study examines the relationship between adolescent pregnancy experiences and precarious employment in adulthood, distinguishing between three pregnancy outcomes: abortion, miscarriage, and live birth. Using longitudinal data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, we estimate school-fixed effects regression models to assess whether adolescent pregnancy is associated with greater labor market precarity. To examine underlying mechanisms, we employ multivariate bootstrap mediation analysis to test the mediating roles of educational attainment, incarceration history, and depressive symptoms. Findings indicate that all pregnancy outcomes are linked to increased risk of precarious employment, with educational attainment emerging as a consistent mediator across all outcomes-accounting for 28.2% of the total effect for live birth, 15.4% for miscarriage, and 14.1% for abortion. Incarceration significantly mediates the association for live birth (16.8%) and miscarriage (17.0%), but not abortion. Depressive symptoms have a relatively smaller overall impact, mediating 13.7% of the effect for abortion only. These results underscore the importance of disaggregating adolescent pregnancy experiences and identifying key mechanisms to better understand how early reproductive events shape labor market inequality across the life course. Findings point to the need for targeted, outcome-specific interventions that support continued education, reduce criminal justice exposure, and address mental health to mitigate long-term employment precarity among adolescent pregnancy survivors.