Impact of Pre-Marital Pregnancy on Birth Outcome: Evidence from South Korea

Proportion of shotgun birth is rapidly increasing in South Korea. Using the complete birth records of Korea from 1997 to 2009, we study the impact of shotgun birth and out-of-wedlock birth on birth outcome. The decrease in normal births is almost entirely replaced by shotgun births. We find that premarital pregnancy impact, especially shotgun birth impact, on birth weight and low birth weight probability is either statistically insignificant or economically insignificant. Therefore the impact of rapidly increasing shotgun birth of South Korea on birth outcome is trivial.