Risking the Future Adolescent Sexuality, Pregnancy, and Childbearing, Volume II Working Papers only (1987) / Chapter Skim
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6. Social and Economic Consequences of Teenage Childbearing
6. Social and Economic Consequences of Teenage Childbearing
Pages 123-144
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From page 123... ...
The demands of parenthood must cone as a shock to the unmarried teenager who is enrolled in school, who is dependent on her parents, and who knows very little about caring for children. The first part of this chapter focuses on the long term consequences of ear ly childbear ing for the mother, the father, and other family members.
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From page 124... ...
Direct Versus Indirect and Total Effects Just because research identifies no direct causal connection between two var tables, for example, between the age at which a woman has her first birth and family income, for example, does not mean there is no association at all. For example, if an early first birth is ascot c fated with reduced schooling, which is, in turn, associated with lower earnings, and lower income, then an early f irst birth is indirectly associated with lower family income later on.
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From page 125... ...
This is then associated in a statistical analysis with education, number of children or family income. The coeff icients reported, therefore, show what difference there is in years of schooling, for example, between youth who differ by one year of age at first birth.
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From page 126... ...
Wise (1978) for example, found that young women who bear a child while in high school not only were of lower sac ioeconomic status when they were in ninth g race, but already had lower academic abilities and lower educational expectations than their classmates, factors which also predict poor school performance and poor later life chances.
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From page 127... ...
S ince adolescents who had higher ambitions were much more likely to pa ~ t ic mate in the spec ial p tog ran than to stay in the regular school, and more highly motivated adolescents did better later on regardless of the type of school, this may explain their differential school continuation.
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From page 128... ...
A recent analysis (Marsiglio, 1986} based on the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, waves 1979-1983, also found, net of factors such as parental education, family structure, race, region and religion, that young men who reported fathering a child during their teen years had completed signif icantly fewer years of schooling by 1983 than those who did not report having fathered a child. This research, however, did not control for differential IQ and aspirations among fathers and nonfathers.
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From page 129... ...
There is e~ridence that the dif ference between the earliest and later childbearers is declining with more recent birth cohorts as a result of greater fertility declines among teen mothers (Millman and Bendershot, 1980~. If this result holds up it will be an important one, since the difference in family size is the largest and clearest difference between early and later childbearers, and, as we shall see in the following pages, has the most implications for later well-being.
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From page 130... ...
If so then what these differences are need further explora~cion. F inally, no research in the consequences of early childbear ing on family size have been conducted on males.
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From page 131... ...
Probably the most important question is what is the differential divorce proneness of marriages contracted before pregnancy, after pregnancy but before a birth, and after a f irst birth? Research shows that teenage mothers are less 1 ikely to exper fence a marital separation if they marry before the birth than if they marry after the birth; there is little difference in divorce probability bee tween those who marry before versus after becoming pregnant ~ but before the birth)
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From page 132... ...
Of the three stud ies that have specif ically addressed this issue, one {boo and Bilsborrow, 1980) finds no effect of early childbearing wh ile two stud ies f ind a weak pos it ive ef feet of early childbear ing on labor force participation (Rofferth et al., 1978; Card, 1919} .
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From page 133... ...
By the mid twenties, the later childbearers are beg inning their families and drops ping out of the work force while the early childbearers are reentering. Work Exper fence This is the only area in which there is any disagreement among the various studies, and this disagreement is not hard to resolve.
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From page 134... ...
To the extent that age at f irst birth reduces schooling completed, it is likely to reduce occupational statue later on. The effects of age at first birth on work experience are somewhat unclear.
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From page 135... ...
At early birth reduces schooling, which reduces the proport ion of years worked and reduces hours and earnings at age 21. Add ing all the ef feats up, early age at f irst bi rth is associated with reduced earnings, but this is because it is associated with reduced schooling and increased family size.
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From page 136... ...
Indirect Effects of Early Childbearing Even though there is no direct effect of an early f irst birth on family income or poverty status of young women, it is clear that there may be substantial indirect causal effects due to the impact of an early bi rth on schooling and on family size and composition. Level of schooling is a consistently important factor determining earnings.
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From page 137... ...
Finally, of the total effect on poverty, 80 percent is due to smaller families of postponers, 12 percent to ~ rester schooling, with 8 percent to differential labor force participation. In the Koo~Bilsborrow study, among women of all ages, the largest por~cion of the indirect effect of an early birth is also due to the dif ferential family sizes of early and later childbearers.
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From page 138... ...
Among both black and white women the pr imary negative indirect impact of an early f irst birth on later economic well-being is through its impact on family size. An early first birth means more children by age 21 with its concomitant negative impact on labor force participation and earnings (Bofferth and Moore, 1979~.
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From page 139... ...
The low educational levels and large family sizes of teen childbearers increase their probability of depending on public assistance later on. Factors Leading to Successful Early Childbearers A recent study (Furstenberg and Brooks~Gunn, 1985)
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From page 140... ...
The most important factors in later economic success or failure were family resources, aspirations, marital success and control of fertility. Clearly early childbearers who are ambitious, who continue in school, who use birth control and who avoid a rapid subsequent birth are better able to control their long run family size.
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From page 141... ...
THE HYPOTHETICAL IMPACT OF POLICY INTERV=TIONS Fu ether analyses addressed the relative impact on public sector costs of reducing births as opposed to mediating the effects of an
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From page 142... ...
The results show dollar savings for all approaches, but a much greater savings when a f irst b irth is averted. The g Neatest savings occur when the fertility of all teenagers is reduced by 50 percent -- the number of women age 20-29 receiving AFDC payments in 1990 would be reduced by 35 percent, compared with the baseline scenario; public sector costs for AFDC, Med icaid and Food Stamps for families of women 20-29 would be rem duced by an est imated S 1.4 bill ion.
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From page 143... ...
~ t is these variables that reduce later labor force participation, earnings and family income, not the early bi rth per se. This implies that if the links between an early bi rth and schooling or family size could be broken, so would the link be tween an ear ly b i rth and economic d i sadvantage .
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From page 144... ...
Relative to the ma jar ity of adults, not completing high school and having more than two children probably represents an even ~ rester d isadvantage than it might have been even one decade ago . On the other hand, seve ral stud ies show that a small amount of add itional schooling would decrease early childbearers' dependence on public assistance and increase their economic security as adults only slightly relative to the large impact of a change in childbear ing patterns.
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