Is Pregnancy a Smart Economic Strategy for Low-Income Teens?

Following up on the vibrant conversation (mostly happening at PB) concerning the post yesterday about providing incentives for teen girls to avoid pregnancy, graduate high school and go on to college, commenter Marissa Pherson offers some interesting links about our over-blown shrieking about the costs of teen pregnancy for low-income women and society.  I want to tread carefully here, because two posts on this topic in 24 hours makes me feel a bit like your average liberal dood blogger cavalierly discussing the lives of women in the abstract.

The first link is to an LA Times article that points to a popular piece of research that asserts, based on a natural experiment, that teen pregnancy is a smarter economic strategy for young women and society - as the women turn out to work more and pay more in taxes over the long-term than women who delay childbearing into their 20s.  This is because the teen mothers have more time and ability in their adult years to work; effectively, they get the child rearing out of the way during their less productive years.

Interesting concept.  Compare it now to research that shows that women who delay childbearing until they're over 30 enjoy higher wages over the lifecourse - the premiums, it turns out, are biggest for college-educated women, and women in managerial positions.  In fact, "higher expected career earnings lead women to postpone childbearing."  What's that now about incentives?

What I recommend taking from these seemingly contradictory pieces of research is the class and cultural contexts of these women's lives.  More and more research is beginning to show that child-rearing at an early age for low-income women can be an important and rational (hate that word!) step towards maturity and adulthood.  It's also a nod to the reality that in low-income communities that have higher mortality rates bearing children young ensures that there are plenty of caregivers available to help with childrearing.  So my cousins who have GEDs or h.s. diplomas and give birth at 19 have a child in school all day by the time they're 25, as opposed to a 2 year old at home, and can more easily go back to work, theoretically, more mature and responsible than when they were 18.

In contrast, women who have been groomed for higher education and careers their entire lives, via strong public schools, professional parents, and social norms, are taught that they'd better not have children until they are firmly established in their careers.  So delay, delay, delay.  Their communities have lower mortality rates and their working parents retire later, so waiting to have children also increases the option that caregivers will be available.  They may also have the cash cushion to exit the workforce by then.  And they are ultimately rewarded financially for this decision.  (Or at least I hope so!)

It's tough not to impose our own world views on others' choices, and the lack of class, racial-ethnic and geographic diversity among our policy makers and policy wonks reduces our understanding of the structures and the agency that leads us to construct our lives in the ways that we do.

Ultimately, this is all an issue of poverty.  Sociologist Mike Males writes:

To the extent that teen parenthood is a problem that needs to be prevented, says Males, it should be reduced because it's a symptom of poverty: "A distinct motivator for early childbearing is the fact that older, adult men provide incentive for impoverished teenage women from chaotic families to escape their difficult circumstances with partners that, presumably, can offer greater maturity, economic resources, and independence. The best prevention strategy is to reduce the number of young women and men in circumstances from which escape through early parenthood is desirable."

Word.

(Photo by funbobseye)