Why focus on teen pregnancy?

VIRTUALLY, all of the growth of single-parent families in recent decades has been driven by an increase in births outside marriage.

Divorce rates have levelled off or declined modestly since the early 1980s and thus have not contributed to the rising proportion of children being raised by only one parent nor to the increase in child poverty and welfare dependence associated with the rise in single-parent families.

Not all non-marital births are to teenagers. In fact, 70% of all births outside marriage are to women over age 20. For this reason, some argue that a focus on teens fails to address the real problem and that much more attention needs to be given to preventing childbearing, or raising marriage rates, among single women, who have already entered their adult years.

But there are at least four reasons to focus on teens:

First, although a large proportion of non-marital births is to adult women, half of first non-marital births are to teens. Thus, the pattern tends to start in the teenage years, and, once teens have had a first child outside marriage, many go on to have additional children out of wedlock at an older age. A number of programmes aimed at preventing subsequent births to teen mothers have been launched but few have had much success. So, if we want to prevent out-of-wedlock childbearing and the growth of single-parent families, the teenage years are a good place to start.

Second, teen childbearing is very costly. A 1997 study by Rebecca Maynard of Mathematica Policy Research in Princeton, New Jersey in the United States, found that after controlling for differences between teen mothers and mothers aged 20 or 21 when they had their first child, teen childbearing costs taxpayers more than US$7 billion a year or US$3 200 a year for each teenage birth, conservatively estimated.

Third, although almost all single mothers face major challenges in raising their children alone, teen mothers are especially disadvantaged. They are more likely to have dropped out of school and are less likely to be able to support themselves.

Only one out of every five teen mothers receives any support from their child’s father, and about 80% end up on welfare. Once on welfare, they are likely to remain there for a long time. In fact, half of all current welfare recipients had their first child as a teenager.

Some research suggests that women who have children at an early age are no worse off than comparable women who delay childbearing.

According to this research, many of the disadvantages accruing to early child-bearers are related to their own disadvantaged backgrounds.

This research suggests that it would be unwise to attribute all of the problems faced by teen mothers to the timing of the birth per se.

But even after taking background characteristics into account, other research documents that teen mothers are less likely to finish high school, less likely to ever marry, and more likely to have additional children outside marriage.

Thus, an early birth is not just a marker of preexisting problems but a barrier to subsequent upward mobility. As Daniel Lichter of Ohio State University has shown, even those unwed mothers who eventually marry end up with less successful partners than those who delay childbearing.

As a result, even if married, these women face much higher rates of poverty and dependence on government assistance than those who avoid an early birth. And early marriages are much more likely to end in divorce. So marriage, while helpful, is no panacea.

Fourth, the children of teen mothers face far greater problems than those born to older mothers. If the reason we care about stemming the growth of single-parent families is the consequences for children, and if the age of the mother is as important as her marital status, then focusing solely on marital status would be unwise. Not only are mothers who defer childbearing more likely to marry, but with or without marriage, their children will be better off.

The children of teen mothers are more likely than the children of older mothers to be born prematurely at low birth weight and to suffer a variety of health problems as a consequence.

They are more likely to do poorly in school, to suffer higher rates of abuse and neglect, and to end up in foster care with all its attendant costs.