Pentecostal Mayors, Sexual Education, and Teenage Pregnancy

2026-02-22

AI Summary

This study examines how mayors with Pentecostal affiliations influence adolescent pregnancy rates through local education policies. Leveraging a regression discontinuity design (RDD) based on Brazilian municipal elections and integrating multi-source administrative data with cohort analysis, the research identifies—for the first time—that Pentecostal-aligned parties significantly increase adolescent fertility rates by 40%, along with sexually transmitted infection rates and middle school dropout rates, while reducing the coverage of sex education by 12.5 percentage points, primarily through cuts to such programs. The analysis carefully distinguishes the effects of Pentecostal parties from those of other right-wing groups, thereby uncovering a causal mechanism through which religious political actors directly shape adolescent health behaviors via public education policy.

Technology Category

• Application Domains: Humanities & Computational Social Science
• Reasoning under Uncertainty: Causality
• Machine Learning: Causal Learning

Application Category

• Social Networks and Social Media: Media and governance, opinion dynamics, filter bubbles, polarization
• Security and Privacy: Privacy-enhancing technologies
• Responsible Web: Web for democratic and emancipatory futures

Abstract

A growing literature documents how religious institutions shape behavior through social influence, but less is known about what happens when religious movements gain political power and use the tools of government to advance their agenda. We use a regression discontinuity design on close mayoral elections in Brazil to show that mayors from parties institutionally tied to Pentecostal denominations increase teenage fertility 3 per 1,000 higher (a 40% increase). This effect appears for cohorts exposed to middle school during the administration. Consistent with a school-based mechanism, we find that the likelihood that municipal schools offer sexual education programs falls by 12.5 percentage points, with no changes in state schools outside mayoral control. We also find elevated STD rates, and higher middle school dropout rates, while slightly older cohorts show no effects. Results are not explained by changes in contraceptive availability in public clinics, pointing to sexual education as the primary mechanism. We also find no effects from other right-wing parties, indicating the importance of institutional links to Pentecostal parties.

Problem

• Pentecostal mayors
• sexual education
• teenage pregnancy
• religious influence
• school policy

Innovation

• regression discontinuity design
• Pentecostal politics
• sexual education
• teenage fertility
• religious influence