Teenage Childbearing and Welfare: Preventive and Ameliorative

I
Teenage Childbearing and Welfare:
Preventive and Ameliorative Strategies
By Kristin A. Moore and Richard F. Wertheimer
Summary
The results of seven computer simulations
suggest that strategies to prevent teenage
childbearing may be more effective in reducing the number of young women who
require welfare assistance than are strategies to improve the circumstances of teenagers who have already given birth. The
first simulation constitutes a baseline projection, in which current levels and patterns
of adolescent childbearing are assumec! to
continue to 1990. Three "preventive" simulations assume that no births or fewer births
occur among teenagers during the projection period; and three "ameliorative" simulations assume that changes occur in the
completed family size, marriage rate and
educational attainment of teenage childbearers. Compared with the baseline projection, the three preventive strategies are
estimated to reduce by 22-48 percent the
number of adolescent childbearers who, as
2G-24-year-olds in 1990, will be receiving
welfare payments; the three ameliorative
strategies cause only a 6-12 percent drop.
The strategy with the least impact is the
education scenario, in which adolescent
mothers are assumed to be no more likely to
drop out of school than &re other comparable teenagers. The primary reason for the
surprisingly small effect appears to be the
relatively low earnings of women-even
when they are high schQol graduates.
1
Kristin A. Moore is Senior Research Associate at Child
Trends, and Richard F. Wertheimer is Director, Puhlic
Emnomic Servke, at Data HesourL-es,hoth in Washington, D.C. The authors were previously 00 the staff ofThe
l'rhao Institute, where the research presented in this
article was ,,,oducted (uoder "mtmd NOI-HD-9-1822
rmm the Center Ii" Populalion Research, Nationallnstilute of Child lIealth ,md lIuman Development). For a
mmplele, technic,d description of the research pmject,
see: R. F. \\'erth,'imer and K. A. ~h.,re. Teen"ge C/ii/dbe",;,,/!,:P"Mie See/"rC".".. The UrhanInslitute.\\'a.sli.
iuJ.tlulI.
D.C., I>.'c.:.lUX:!.The \'i..\\'s f.°,.pn'ss(.dill this
:'rti~le ure thll~1!
of IIII!ullihorsmul
do 11111IIl!l'l'ssarily
represent till' Vil'WS
uftlal' u.s. J,tu\'cnllnl'lIt.Thl' Urhan
IIIstilute or any uf its sponsors.
Volume
16, Number
6, November/December
1984
Teenage
mothers are disproportionately
represented among
welfare recipients. The need to break the connection between
early childbearing and poverty is cl~ar, but which strategies
will be the most effective?
All of the experimental scenarios tested,
however, bring about at least some reduction in projected government spending for
the three major public assistance programs
considered (Aid to Families with Dependent
Children, Medicaid and Food Stamps).
I"troduction
Births to teem\gers represent a substantial
component of U.S. fertility. In 1982, births
to adolescents accounted for l-t percent of all
births and 26 percent of aIIfirst births, Of the
nearly 525,000 teenage births in that year,
moreover, 51 percent occurred outside of
marriage, compared with 15 percent in
1955.1 Numerous studies have shown that
early childbearing has adverse consequences
for the mothers, their families and society.
Young women who become mothers before
completing high school are more likely than
other young women to drop out of school,
and are likely to obtain significantly less education than do their childless peers, even
when family background and academic aptitude and achievement are taken into account.2 Teenage mothers also tend to have
larger completed family sizes,:} less stable
marriages,-t less prestigious jobs and lower
incomes5 than do young women who postpone childbearing.
As a result of such effects, women who give
birth as adolescents are more likely to live in
poverty, and are considerably more likely to
receive public assistance. (;Over half the budget for the Aid to Families with Dependent
Children (AFDC) program is expended on
families in which the mother was a teena~er
wh~n she had her first child; and nearly
three-quarters of AFDC recipients younger
than .30were teenagers at first birth.' Since
fewer than one-quarter of all U.S. women
born between 1945 and 1959 bore a child by
age 20,1;it is clear that teenage mothers are
disproportionately represented a!D0ng welfare recipients.
Given the extensive evidence that early
childbearing increases the odds of poverty
lor a woman and her lamily, policy-makers
have sought to reduce the incidence of poverty through programs designed either to
lower the incidence of teenage motherhood
or to break the link between teenage motherhood and poverty, The computer-simulation
research project described here compares
the effects of seven hypothetical strategies,
or scenarios, on the incidence and cost of
welfare dependency among young women.
These scenarios project a range of possible
Ol!tcomes resulting from interventions to
either decrease adolescent childbearing or
break the childbearing-poverty cycle. The
scenarios have been estimated for the period
1981-1990 using DYNASIM, a comprehensive microanalytic computer model of the
U.S. population developed at The Urban Institute.
The first, or baseline, scenario assumes the
continuation of current trends and policies,
and provides an estimate of the number of
women aged 20-29 who are likely to be receiving AFDC support in 1990 if no drastic
changes in demographic and economic behavior occur during the precediflg 10 years.
The six remaining scenarios project the likely AFDC population if various behavioral
changes do take place: Three "preventive"
scenarios are designed to forestall wel(are
dependency by reducing the incidence of
childbearing among teenagers. Three other
scenarios, which are remedial in nature, are
285
Teenage
Childbearing and Welfare
expected to reduce the probability of welfare
dependency among teenage mottters by
ameliorating the consequences of early childbearing; these strategies address subsequent
fertility, marital status and education, factors
thitt have been found to be adversely affected
by an early birth and that in turn affect laborforce participation, earnings, poverty and
the need for public assis~ance. The specific
parameters used for each scenario are as follows:
. Scenario 1: baseline. Current trends (as of
1980) continue; the fertility rates and trends
used are the same as those employed in the
Census Bureau's medium-level projection of
the population to the year 2050.9
. Scenario 2: no births to unmarried women
under age 18. No woman younger than 18
who is unmarried at the start of ,\ simulation
year is allowed by the computer to have a
hirth durin~ that year.
. Scenario 3: fewer births to women under
age 20. There is a 50 percent reduction in the
annual age- and race-specific probabilities of
birt!1 among married and unmarried women
younger than 20.
. Scenario 4: fewer births to women under
qge 18. There is a 50 percent reduction in the
ann~tal a~e- and race-specific probabilities of
birth among married and unmarried women
younger than 18.
.
. Scenario 5: smaller completed family size.
The fertility of teenage child bearers subsequent to the first birth is reduced to ensure
that their completed family size will be no
greater than the completed family size of
women who do not give birth as teenagers.'
. Scenario 6: increased marriage probabilities. For teenage mothers who are unmarried
at the start of a simulation year, the pr~bability of marriage during that year is raised by
half the diflerence between 100 percent and
the marriage probability for i111women in
each age, race and parity subgroup. (Thus, if
half of a subgroup of teenage mothers are
married in the baseline scenario, three-quarters would be married in this scenario.) The
change in marriage probability selected for
this scenario was deemed substantial enough
to have an impact, without being who!ly unrea!istjc.
.
. Scenario 7: increased education. The annual probability of dropping out of school is
no higher for teenage childbearers than for
other teenagers of the same age, race and
sex.
DYNASIM
DYNASIM is a microsimulation computer
model that can project a representative sample of the U.S. population into th~ futur~ as
th~ popldation ages. Within DYNASIM,
members of the population grow older, mar286
ry, divorce, work, attend school, bear children, receive government transfer payments
and die. However, these events do not happen at static rates or in isolation from one
another. .Rather, DYNASIM is a dynamic,
behavioral model that simulates the complexity of human experience more closely
than do most other computer models. For
example, in DYNASIM as in real life, the
level of the divorce rate affects not only the
marital-status distribution of the population,
but also the levels of such other variables as
labor-force participatio~, fertility, family income and welfare dependency.
In addition, since DYNASIM parameters
are not fixed, an analyst can alter a given
parameter or introduce a new one and evaluate the eflects of the change on subsequent
behavior. For example, an increase in the
divorce rate can be entered into DYNASIM,
and subsequent chan~es in labor-force participation, fertility and other variables associated with a higher divorce rate will ripple
through the model.' In such a simulation,
therefcJre, the characteristics of the population in some future year will difler across the
board from the population characteristics in a
simulation based on the current divorce rate.
Moreover, if research uncovers behavioral
relationships not already programmed into
DYNASIM, those new associations can be
programmed into the model and allowed to
affect other characteristics of the population.
DYNASIM can be built around any large,
representative sample of the U.S. population. The model ages the population according to the behavioral parameters programmed into the model for a particular
year. For the final year of interest, the model
produces as output a population just like the
initial population except for the social and
demographic events imposed on it during
the intervening "time." In eflect, the output
is a simulate~ survey of a future population;
and researchers can analyze survey data on
that future population in the same way that
they would analyze data on a real, historical
population.
The model has previously been used for
studies of the elderly and the working-age
population. For this study, DYNASIM was
modified to incorporate research findings on
the relationships among teenage childbearing, marriage, school dropout and laborforce participation. For example, adolescents experiencing a birth were programmed
to have a higher probability of marrying and
dropping out of schopl than childless teenagers had. Married teenagers were programmed to have a higher likelihood ofleaving school than their unmarried peers had.
Marriage was made dependent on school enrollment and fertility. In addition, labor-
force participation among teenagers was
modeled to reflect their marital and fertility
status, as well as other factors.
After DYNASIM was modiBed, the baseline scenario was run for 1976-1980, and the
output was aligned with current trends in
fertility, marriage, divorce, labor-force participation, earnings, welfare expenditures,
unemployment and educational attainment.
That is, when parameters based on previous
behavioral research did not produce results
in line with published data, the parameters
were altered to ensure that over the simulation years, the computer's version of reality
would approximate statistical reality as closely as possible. After being aligned with available data, the baseline. scenario was run
through the year 1990.The six experimental
scenarios were then programmed as variants
of the haseline, and each was similarly run
throu~h 1990. Cumulative d,\h1 for 19811990 were stored on an output /He together
with data for the final year, 1990.These data
are the basis of the following analysis.
Results
. The baseline scenario. In this simulation,
socioeconomic behavior and trends as measured in 1980 are assumed to continue
through 1990:Labor-fiJrce participation rates
among women are assumed to continue their
rise, welfare beneHts are expected to increase more slowly than inHation, inflation is
assumed to decline somewhat, and unemployment is assumed to fall. In addition, the
cohorts of young women enterjng their teen
years during the IO-year period are assumed
to be smaller than the 1980teenage cohort.
pespite these !!;enerallyfavorable assumptions,. the results from the baseline projection to 1990 indicate that women wh6 bear
their first child before age 20 can be expected
to continue to have lower educational attainment, lower participation in the work force,
lower personal and family earnings, larger
families and greater welfare dependency
than women who bear their children at older
ages. Moreover, as Table I shows, welfi1re
rolls in 1990will continue to include a disproportionate share of teenage mothers, since 79
percent of20-24-year-olds and 52 percent of
2,s-29-year-olds projected to be AFDC recipients in 1990 will have become mothers
during their teen years.
. The preventive scenarios. Scenarios 2-4
suggest the impact that interventions to reduce teenage childbearing might have on
welfare dependency. Compared with the
baseline projection, each scenario produces a
substantial decline in the number of women
aged2()-Z4requiringAfDC assistance(see
Table I).
Scenario 2-which precludes childbearing
Family Planning Perspectives
among unmarried women younger than 18Table 1. Number of women aged 20-24 and 25-29 receiving AFDCpayments in 1990, under
was developed initially because of the great seven scenarios
vulnerability of young, single mothers to welfare dependency. In this simulation, a 24 Measure
Ameliorative
Preventive
Baseline
percent reduction is achieved in the total
Increased
Increased
Smaller
50% de50% deNo births
number of women 2(~24 projected to be
comeducato uncrease
crease
marriage
tion
AFDC recipients in 1990 (from 437,839 to
married
pleted
probabilinfertility
infertility
ities
under
under
women
family
:3:31,986), and a :37 percent reduction is
size
under
age 20
age 18
achieved in the number of recipients who
age 18
will have given birth as adolescents. No re(6)
(7)
(5)
(3)
(4)
(1)
(2)
duction occurs, however, in the number of
teenage child bearers among women 25-29 in Women aged 20-24
405,979
413,830
376,202
283,162
375,182
Total
331,986
437,839
1990; and, in filet, there is a seemingly anomalous 10 percent increase. Part of the reason Women with 1st birth
age 20
is that many of the women in this subgroup before
324,420
324,722
301,806
180,539
267,735
No.
218,077
344,583
would have been 18-19 in 1980-too old to
80
80
71
78
66
64
79
%oftotal
be aflected at all by an intervention focusing
% change in
on those 17 and younger. An additional exno. compared
-6
-6
-12
planation is the rebound effect, a phenome-22
-37
-48
na
with baseline
non that occurs in all three scenarios in which
Women aged 25-29
teenage childbearing is prevented. For ex- Tolal
491,914
433,369
441,928
438,634
453,957
476,227
487,375
ample, if births to women 17and younger are
Women with 1st birth
proscribed, then more women are eligible to before age 20
265,631
207,622
233,867
have a first birth at ages 18-19, and the num250,215
No.
279,626
210,405
255,118
54
53
55
48
ber of births in that age-group rises. The
59
48
. 52
% of total
same pattern-an increase in first births over
% change in
the baseline level-is also found as women in
no. compared
+4
-2
-8
-18
-19
na
+10
with baseline
each of the two age subgroups pass through
ages 2~24 in these three scenarios~ Further- Note: In this table and Table 2, na=not applicable.
more, the rebound effect, which is a fairly
predictable result of preventing births at the
earlier ages, combines with a marriage effect respondingly reduced, but the 22 percent 20s, the number is down by 19percent.
The sixth scenario explores the impact of
whereby women 18 and older are less likely decrease for the 2~24 age-group is still suban
altered propensity to marry among teenstantial.
This
decrease
is
also
smaller
than
than younger women to marry in order to
legitimate a birth. 10Thus, a larger number of that found when unmarried women of the agers who have babies. What if the trend
nonmarital first births occur at ages 18-19 in same age are precluded from childbearing toward out-of~wedlock births were reversed?
the "unmarried" scenario than in the base- (scenario 2). (This difference is not surpris- As Table 1 illustrates, raising the age-, raceline. Among women 2(~24 in 1990-all of ing; unlike scenario 2, scenario 4 aflects mar- and parity-specific marriage probabilities for
whom would have been aflected by scenario ried as well as unmarried women younger teenage mothers causes only modest reduc2-the increase in first births among the 18- than IB, and married women have generally tions (12 percent and eight percent) in the
19-year-olds is overwhelmed by the large de- not been eligible to receive AFDC pay- number receiving welfare. The reason is that
cline in first births among women 17 and ments. Also, since most births to school-age many of the marriages that are formed are
younger. Among women in their late 20s in women occur among the unmarried, an over- short-lived. Although women in this scenario
1990, however, the impact of the scenario on all reduction of 50 percent has less impact do spend a greater proportion of the years
the younger teens is insufficient to outweigh than does the elimination of all nonmarital between 1981and 1990in marriage, by 1990
the rebound and marriage effects found at births.) Virtually no effect is apparent among they are similar in marital status to women in
women in their late 20s, because the older the baseline scenario: Within the 2~24 ageages 18-19.
Scenario 3--calling for a 50 percent de- members of this subgroup would not have group, 72 percent in scenario 6 are married,
crease in the probability of birth among all been affected by the fertility reduction over compared with 67 percent in the baseline
women under age 20-produces a very large the projection period, and because of the projection. For women 25-29 in 1990, the
corresponding proportions are 73 percent
decline (4B percent) in the number of adoles- rebound effect.
cent childbearers among 2~24-year-olds re- . The ameliorative scenarios. As Table 1 and 74 percent, respectively (not shown).
ceiving AFDC. An 18percent decline occurs shows, the remedial approaches are substan- Thus, this scenario has a stronger effect iniamong women in their late 20s (the effectis tially less effective in preventing welfare de- tially than it does as the years go by.
In general, the effects shown so far have
smaller for these women partly because some pendency than are the preventive strategies.
been
smaller fin women aged 25-29 than IiII'
Thus,
reducing
subsequent
fertility
among
of them already have had children by the
time the simulation begins). Overall, this adolescent childbearers (scenario 5) has only those 2~24. As noted earlier, this difference
scenario achieves the largest impact of the six a small impact in the short run, although in is partly because many of the oldest women
this instance the effect increases as the years would have been too old in 1980 to undergo
experimental scenarios.
In scenario 4, the 50 percent reduction in go by: Among AFDC recipients hi their early the behavioral changes incorporated into the
fertility is limited to women younger than 18. 20s, the numberof teenage mothers is only model for the following decade. However,
The decline in the number of teenage child- six percent lower than in the baseline projec- part of the reason is also that the magnitude
bearers within the AFDC population is cor- tion, whereas among recipients in their late of effects changes over time. F:or example,
1
Volume 16, Number 6, November/December
-
-
--
1984
287
Teenage
Childbearing
and Welfare
the protection afforded by marriage tends to
dissipate with time; teenage marriages break
up at high rates within DYNASIM, just as
they do In real life, so that within a few years,
many of the mothers become heads of households who are eligible for welfare support. In
addition, as noted earlier, the fertility reductions imposed on the sample population tend
to be followed by rebound births-the
probability of early childbearing is so high for
some women that once the strict rules preventing birth are removed from the model,
many of the delayed births occur In short
order. Of course, a delay In motherhood of
just a year or two can be crucial to the social
and emotional well-being of young women;
but It should be noted that delaying the first
birth a short time does not necessarily prevent welfare dependency.
On the other hand, the ma~nitude of the
effects In scenario 5 Increases as the years go
by and the scenario takes hold. Since family
size has an important association with poverty,ll it makes sense that a reduction In this
factor would reduce the number of women
apparent causes.13Given such a labor mar- programs while the mothers remaining reket, results from this study suggest that programs designed simply to help teenage
mothers return to high school will not be
highly effectivein moving them toward economic independence. This conclusion may
not apply, of course, to special programs that
train young mothers for more remunerative
occupations. Such programs may prove highly cost-effective. However, the findings do
suggestthat in the current labor market, traditional ameliorative approachesare less effective in preventing povertyandwelfaredependency than are programs that succeed in
getting teenagers to delay the first birth.
ceive smaller payments as a result of having
fewer children. Increasing the marriage rate
among teenage mothers (scenario 6) reduces
transfer costs by 13 percent; but returning
teenage mothers to high school (scenario 7)
results in only a four percent reduction.
Discussion and Conclusions
Evidence indicates that adolescent childbearing elevates the risk of poverty and the
need for welfare assistance. In an economic
environment with Increasing competition for
limited public monies, the relativeeffectiveness of various preventive and remedial approaches to teenage parenthood has become
an issue for debate. Results from this study
suggest that while both kinds of approaches
have .animpact, strategies to prevent teenage
parenthood may be particularly successful in
reducing the number of young women(and
children) who require public assistance. In
our cOmputersimulation, the three preventive approaches reduce by 22-48 percent the
number of adolescent child bearers who are
on the AFDC rolls In their early 20s; none of
the ameliorative approaches has such a
strong impact in the short run, since the
reductions achieved are only 6-12 percent.
However, one of the ameliorative strategies-reducing
subsequent fertility among
adolescent mothers-shows
considerable
promise, since its effects Increase with time.
This scenarioIsprojected to reduce the number of adolescentchildbearers in the AFDC
popu~ation by six percent among women
aged 20-24 in 1990, but by 19percent among
those aged 25-29-the latter women having
had five more years In which to be affected.
(The projected cost reductionsare 12percent
for the younger women and 20 percent for
the older ones-not shown.) Since family
size affects women's employment as well as
Transfer Program Costs
As shown In Table 2, the projected cost savings associatedwith the six experimentalscenarios, while not enormous, are substantial.
Scenario 3 (50 percent reduction In fertility
among women under 20) is estimated to produce a 2.5percent reduction in 1990in the
cost of the three transfer programs considered-AFDC,
Medicaid and Food Stampsreceiving AFDC payments.
from $5,8 billion to $4.4 billion(in 1982dolSomewhat more startling is the finding lars). Preventing childbearing among unmarried women under 18(scenario 2)would have
that removing the effect of early childbearing
on the likelihood of dropping out of school a smaller impact, a 15 percent decline. The
(scenario 7) does not have much impact on magnitude of the effect Is still striking, howwelfare dependency among young women. ever, considering how focusedthe changeIs;
The reason for this result is that none of the single women younger than 18 bore "only"
131,000 babies in 1980.'"' yet preventing or
scenarios has much impact on teenage mothers' earnings; even the education scenario Is delaying such births would have had a noassociated with a projected annual increase ticeable impact on welfare costs. Reducing
fertility by half among all females under 18
in earnings of less than $200 for mothers
having a first birth before age 18 (not shown).
(scenario4) is estimated to produce a 12percent reduction In transfer costs.
Since this scenario does produce an increase
in educational
attainment
among highOf the ameliorative strategies, scenario 5
school-age mothers (from 72 percent com- (completed familysize)produces the largest
pleting high school in the baseline scenario to decline in transfer costs-17 percent-be89 percent doing so in this scenario-not
cause reducing subsequent fertility enables
shown), its lack of impact on welfare depen- some teenage mothers to move out of welfare
dency seems to be due to the generally low
earnings ofwomen and the relatively low rate
of return on schooling that obtains for wom- Table 2. Costs In 1990 of three transfer programs (AFDP, Medicaid and Food Stamps) for AFDC
en. Women's earnings are considerably low- families of women aged 20-29 (In billions of 1982 dollars), under seven scenarios
er than men's, even when full-time, full-year Type of
BasePreventive
Ameliorative
workers are considered: In 198.'3,female high cost
line
No births
50% de.
50% deSmaller
Increased
Increased
school graduates who worked full time all
to un.
crease
crease
comeduca.
marriage
year had a median income of$13, 787, wheremarried
tlon
pleted
probabll.
Infertility
Infertility
under
under
Itles
women
as comparable males had a median income of
family
under
size
age 20
age 18
$21,82.'3. The differential persisted even
age 18
among collegegraduates, who had a median
(3)
(5)
(1)
(2)
(4)
(6)
(7)
income of$18,452 if they were female, but of
Total
5.83
4.40
5.11
4.86
5.08
5.81
4.93.
$29,892 if they were male. 12
AFDC
3.36
2.83
2.56
2.97
2.83
2.93
3.25
Many studies have explored the reasons
Medicaid
1.24
1.06
0.93
1.08
1.03
1.07
1.19
for the discrepancy in earnings. Some of the
1.23
1.04
0.91
1.06
1.00
1.06
1.17
difference is accountedfor by differentialin- Food Stamps
vestment In human capital, by employment % change In
experience and by occupational distribution; lolalcosls
compared with
but unequal pay for comparable work and baseline
na
-25
-12
-17
-13
-15
-4
discrimination in the marketplace are also
288
Family
Planning Perspectives
the number of dependents supported by a
particular income, the increasing efficacy of
the family-size scenario makes intuitive
sense and accords with other research. 15
The impact of the scenario that increases
marriage probabilities is moderate and remains moderate (8-12 percent reductions in
the numbers on welfare, and a 13 percent
reduction in transfer costs). These results
suggest that increasing the proportion of
young mothers who marry would have a real
if not an enormous effect, but the feasibility
of the approach is uncertain. Marriage provides more secure access to the father's earnings, of course, and thus reduces welfare dependency. However, teenage marriages
tend to be fragile. In addition, since young
women are even more likely to drop out of
school if they marry than if they become
mothers, 16encouraging marriage may result
in still less schooling for teenage mothers. At
present, a young woman who is both a mother and a wife is very likely to drop out of
school. Then, ifher marriage does end, she is
highly disadvantaged in the labor market.
Perhaps greater family support, counseling
programs or other support services could increase the durability of vulnerable adolescent marriages and also increase the number
of young wives who remain in school.
The strategy with apparently the least impact is the education scenario, in which teenage mothers are assumed to be no more likely
to drop out of school than are other comparable teenagers. Removing the link between
early childbearing and school dropout would
reduce the number of teenage mothers
among 20-24-year-old AFDC recipients by
only six percent. Although surprising at first,
this result is reasonable and has important
policy implications. As noted earlier, the
economic return on education is lower for
women-even women who have completed
college-than for men; indeed, the earnings
of most women, and particularly mothers,
are very low. Therefore, raising the proportion of adolescent mothers who return to
high school has little impact on the earnings
of early childbearers or their need for welfare
support. Of course, we have not tested the
impact of several long-term programs specifically developed to move teenage mothers
toward economic independence. Perhaps
programs that provide training in relatively
well-paying jobs would have a significant
positive impact on the earnings of young
women. In the meantime, however, marriage improves women's economic status
more than completion of high school does.
While this conclusion suggests a need to consider ways to enhance the formation and continuation of stable marriages, it also implies a
need to train women for jobs that pay well. As
Volume 16, Number 6, November/December
-
-
---
1984
long as the potential earnings of young mothers are so low, welfare will remain an unavoidable if unattractive alternative to paid
employment.
The issue of women's economic return on
education is related to the broader question
of opportunity costs and their importance in
women's decisions about the timing and
number of children they bear.17 A rapidly
growing literature indicates that fertility is
lowest among women who have the best alternatives to motherhood, and thus perceive
the greatest opportunity costs associated
with childbearing. Results from our own research suggest that early childbearing is most
common among women with low opportunity costs, since many young mothers would
apparently not have gone far in school even if
they had not had a birth. For many young
women, a lack of economic opportunities
may undercut the motivation to postpone
parenthood. Such an explanation may account for the relatively high rates of childbearing among minority teenagers; Fortytwo percent of black teenagers in the labor
force are unemployed. 18
This study has focused on only the economic aspect of teenage childbearing. Obviously, social, psychological, medical and
other economic sequelae are involved. In
addition, we have presented only gross estimates. The costs of bringing about the behavioral changes tested in our model have
not been estimated, and such costs may be
considerable. However, we believe that the
costs associated with preventive programs
(for example, to provide comprehensive sex
education and to deliver contraceptive services) are probably lower than the costs associated with remedial strategies (programs
to keep teenage mothers in high school, for
example, tend to require substantial and
long-term investments). In any case, the cost
savings generated by both preventive and
ameliorative programs may be sufficient for
the programs to "pay their own way."
Of course, in the real world, it is unlikely
that anyone approach will be pursued to the
exclusion of alternative approaches. Thus,
even if preventive strategies were given priority, it would still make economic (as well as
social) sense to support programs that assist
teenage parents to complete high school, to
avoid rapid subsequent childbearing and to
form viable marriages. All of the experimental scenarios we have tested bring about at
least some reduction in expenditures for the
three major public assistance programs.
Ref
nce.
.
1. National Center fur Health Statistics, DHHS (NCHS),
"Advance Report of Final Natality Statistics, 1982,"
Monthlll Vital Stat/sticl Report, Vol. 33, No.6. Supple.
ment, 1984: and K. A. Moore and M. R. Burt, Private
Cr/sU, Public Cost: Policy Penpectll>llson Teenage Child.
bearing, The Urban Institute. Washington, D.C., 1982.
2. J. McCarthy and E. S. Radish, "Research Note: Edu.
cation and Childbearing Among Teenagers," Familll Plan.
nlng Perspectlv6I, 14.154, 1982; K. A. Moore and L. J.
Waite, "Marital Dissolution, Early Motherhood and Early
Marriage," Social Forces, 60.20, 1981; F. Mott and N. L.
Maxwell, "School.Age Mothers: 1968 and 1979," Famllv
Planning
Perspectil>lls,
13.287,
1981; and
J. J. Card
and
L. L. Wise, 'Teenage Mothers and Teenage Fathers: The
Impact of Early Childbearing on the Parents' Personal and
Professional Lives," Family Planning Perspectll>lls, 10.
199, 1978.
3, S. R. Millman and G. E. Hendershot, "Early Fertility
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J. Trussell
and
J. Menken,
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bearing and Subsequent Fertility," Family Planning Per.
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4. J. J. Card and L. L. Wise, 1978, op. elt. (see reference
2).
5. Ibid.
6. S. L. Hofl'erth and K. A. Moore, "Early Childbearing
and Later Economic Well. Being," American Sociolagical
Review, 44:784, 1979: and K. A. Moore, 'Teenage Childbirth and Welfare Dependency," Family Planning Per.
spectlves, 10.233, 1978.
7. K. A. Moore and M. R. Burt, 1982, op. elt. (see reference 1).
8. U.S. Bureau of the Census, "Childspaclng Among
Birth Cohorts of American Women: 1905 to 1959," Cur.
rent Population Reports, Series P-20, No. 385, 1984,
TableA.
9, U.S. Bureau of the Census, "ProjectionsofthePopula.
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Current Population Reports~ Series P-25, No. 922, 1982.
10, Equations estimated &om the National Longitudinal
Survey of Young Women. In R. F. WertheimerandK. A.
Moore, Teenage Childbearing: Public Sector Costs, The
Urban Institute, Washington, D.C., Dec. 1982;and U.S.
Bureau of the Census, Current Population Reports, 1984,
op. cit., Table 7 (see reference 8).
11. S. L. Hofl'erth and K. A. Moore, 1979, op. elt. (see
reference 6).
12. U.S. Bureau of the Census, "Money Income and
Poverty Status of Families and Persons in the United
States: 1983," Current Population Reports, Series P-OO,
No. 145, 1984, Table 7.
13, L. J. Waite, "U.S. Women at Work," Population
Bulletin, Vol. 36, No.2, 1981: and R. Smith, ed., The
Subtle Revolution: Women at Work, The Urban Institute,
Washington. D.C., 1979.
14, NCHS, "Advance Report of Final Natality Statistics,
1980," Monthlll Vital Statisticl Report, Vol. 31, No.8,
Supplement, 1982.
15, S. L. Hofl'erth and K. A. Moore, 1979. op. ell. (see
reference 6).
16. K. A. Moore, S. L. Hofl'erth, S. B. CaldweU and
L. J. Waite, Teenage Motherhooct-soc/al and Econamic
Consequences, The Urban Institute, Washington, D.C.,
1979.
17, E. Jones, "Ways In Which Childbearing AIIecta
Women's Employment: Evidence &om the U.S. 1975
National Fertility Survey," Population Studies, 361177,
1982: and J. C. Cramer, "Employment Trends of Young
Mothers and the Opportunity eost of Babies In the United
States," Demographll, 16.177, 1979.
18. U.S, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Emp/ovmm'lInd
Earnings, Washington, D.C., 1984.
289