Poverty and fertility in the American South
This project first reports descriptive evidence of the characteristics of mothers in the American South and compares them to mothers in other regions of the country. Women in the South (and West) tend to have their children at younger ages than those in the Midwest and Northeast. Mothers in the South (and West) also have much lower levels of education and are more likely to be African American or Hispanic compared to women in the Midwest and Northeast. Next, this paper attempts to link the characteristics of the mothers in the American South to the high rates of poverty there.