Teenage Childbearing Is Not So Bad After All...Or Is It? A Review of the New Literature

Abstract:
This article addresses research suggesting that the problem of teen pregnancy and childbearing has been exaggerated. In particular, this research has taken three approaches: a study comparing sisters who had first births at different ages, a study comparing teenage women who had twins with those who had a singleton birth, and a study comparing mothers who had first become pregnant at age 17 or younger with teenagers who had conceived by the same age but had a miscarriage. The author evaluates these studies closely and concludes that the new research appropriately recognizes the important contributions of other factors--especially family and individual characteristics that are difficult to measure--to the poor average outcomes of teenage mothers. On the other hand, the studies contain weaknesses and the evidence is not yet solid enough to conclude that the effects of teen parenting are positive, zero, or even just marginally negative. The author concludes that reduction of early parenthood will not eliminate the powerful effects of growing up in poverty--but that it represents a potentially productive strategy for widening the pathways out of poverty, or, at the very least, not compounding the handicaps imposed by social disadvantage.

Author(s): Hoffman, Saul D.

Publication: Family Planning Perspectives


Date Published: 9/1/1998

Pages: 5

Location Code: 8299