Geographical Fertility Cluster among Youth in the Main Urban Area of Costa Rica

Andrea Collado, Universidad de Costa Rica

This paper studies youth fertility in the main urban areas of Costa Rica. It uses a spatial analysis and census 1984 and 2000 data for young mothers age 15 to 19. The purpose is to detect geographical places where youth fertility may concentrate. Three outcomes are remarkable: 1) the youth fertility is located in specific places; 2)most places where high fertility is concentrated have been the same during 16 years; and, 3) most of the fertility clusters are associated to poverty, non-school attainment, and unemployment. The former characteristics allow to classify high fertility clusters in three groups: high risk clusters, low risk clusters and unknown risk cluster. High risk clusters are more likely to have less young people going to school, unemployment is higher and often people get jobs in informal sector. Low risk clusters have low poverty levels, youth are more likely to attend school and people are likely to find a job in the formal sector. The unknown risk cluster has not relation to these characteristics.