To what extent should we be concerned about the relatively high rates of teen childbearing in the United States? Early research on the consequences of teen childbearing suggested that adolescents who gave birth were less likely to graduate from high school, more likely to have low earnings as an adult, and less likely to marry than women who delayed childbearing. However, these studies did not fully account for the fact that young women who bore children early were more likely to be disadvantaged to begin with than those who did not. As a result, it was not clear whether poor outcomes in adulthood among teen mothers stemmed from prior disadvantages, or whether they were, at least in part, a result of the childbearing itself.

More recent research shows that when the disadvantaged backgrounds of adolescent mothers are more fully accounted for, the negative effects of early childbearing are substantially smaller and in some cases erased. Thus, poor outcomes in adulthood appear to be more the result of the social and economic disadvantages of teen mothers than the result of the early childbearing. Put another way, the new research implies that delaying childbearing among these young women would not result in increased educational attainment or adult earnings or a higher likelihood of marrying. However, researchers have not yet fully investigated whether family income levels moderate the long-term impacts of teen births.

What about the children of teen mothers? Some have speculated that teen mothers may lack parenting skills and provide less than adequate home environments for their children, resulting in lower cognitive skills and more behavioral problems for their children when compared to those of older mothers. Indeed, early research showed that, on average, children of teen mothers score lower on measures of cognitive and socio-emotional development, and are at higher risk of poor school achievement, than the children of older mothers. However, later research, which more thoroughly controlled for the background disadvantages of teen mothers, showed that these background factors explained the lower cognitive and socio-emotional scores, at least among children through the pre and early teen years. Fewer studies have been conducted on the outcomes of older children of teen mothers. While some research shows that children of teen mothers may be less likely to graduate from high school, or more likely to be incarcerated, it is not yet clear whether these differences remain when fully accounting for the background characteristics of teen mothers. Overall, the accumulation of research evidence suggests that teen childbearing does not have the substantial, deleterious consequences for mothers and their children that it was once thought to have. In addition, rates of teen pregnancy and births have fallen significantly in the past three decades. Despite this, many continue to view teen motherhood as a significant social problem. Forty years ago, concerns about teen pregnancy first arose in concert with concern over the increasing proportion of children born out of wedlock, particularly among poor African Americans. Since that time, rates of out-of-wedlock childbearing have increased for all groups, and it is likely that religious and moral opposition to non-marital childbearing--as well as entrenched beliefs regarding the primacy of the two-parent household for the well-being of children-- will continue to fuel public concern about, and efforts to reduce, teen (now largely non-marital) childbearing. In addition, as some sociologists argue, the continued preoccupation of Americans with teenage pregnancy and parenting might also be explained by American adults' attitudes toward, and discomfort with, teenage and premarital sexual activity and contraceptive use.

References:

1) Abma, Joyce C., G. M. Martinez, William D. Mosher, and B. S. Dawson. 2004. "Teenagers in the United States: Sexual Activity, Contraceptive Use, and Childbearing, 2002." Vital Health Statistics 23(24).

2) Darroch, Jacqueline E., Susheela Singh, and Jennifer J. Frost. 2001. "Differences in Teenage Pregnancy Rates among Five Developed Countries: The Roles of Sexual Activity and Contraceptive Use." Family Planning Perspectives 33(6):244-81.

3) Fursternberg, Frank E., Jr. 2003. "Teenage Childbearing as a Public Issue and Private Concern." Annual Review of Sociology 29:23-39.

4) Hamilton, Brady E., Joyce A. Martin, and Stephanie J. Ventura. 2007. "Births: Preliminary Data for 2006." National Vital Statistics Reports.

5) Hotz, V. Joseph, Seth G. Sanders, and Susan W. McElroy. 2005. "Teenage Childbearing and Its Life Cycle Consequences: Exploiting a Natural Experiment." Journal of Human Resources 40(3):683-715.

6) Turley, Ruth N. Lopez. 2003. "Are Children of Young Mothers Disadvantaged Because of Their Mother's Age or Family Background?" Child Development 74(2):465-74.

7) Ventura, Stephanie, Joyce C. Abma, William D. Mosher, and Stanley K. Henshaw. 2006. "Recent Trends in Teenage Pregnancy in the United States, 1990-2002." Health E-stats. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics.

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