Teen Pregnancy Effects On The United States

New Mexico has made significant progress in reducing the rate of teenage pregnancy but the rate remains high among other states in the country. The National Bureau of Economic Research report suggests that the reason for high level of pregnancy rate among American teenagers is an economic context of income inequality. Teenage pregnancy has many social, health and economic consequences that inhibit women from realizing their full potentials. This challenge imposes economic burden on the state in the form of assistance program for single mothers and lost income due to low level skills. For example, in 2010 teenage mothers’ public and health care assistance programs cost the United States government nearly $10 billion including lost income from lower educational attainment and reduce wage among children born to teenage mothers. Studies show that teenage mothers tend to have less education and are poorer than their peers who are not teenage parents. This implies that teenage pregnancy has intergenerational effects that can be seen in the overall development index in the larger

Consequences of early childbearing have examined the impact of premature parenthood on the economic, marital, and childbearing careers of young mothers (Gortzak-Uzan, Hallak, Press, Katz, M., & Shoham-Vardi (2001). Teenage parents face many life challenges, for example, trying complete high school, finding and paying for quality child care, developing parenting skills, coping with s being a single parent, maintaining a relationship with the father of the child, attending college, securing safe and

Young mothers tend to struggle to feed their children especially if they are single parents and they have to work. In research, done by Penman-Aguilar, Carter, Senead, and Kourtis, it explained the socioeconomic disadvantages related to the social determinant of teen childbearing. They first explained that the birth rate among teenagers in the United States has decreased drastically during the past few years, but they also explained that even though the numbers have dropped teens having a child so young can limit ones social and financial well-being (Penman-Aguilar et al. 2013, pg. 6). The researchers’ as well explained that teen motherhood has substantial costs for both the mother and the infant; teen motherhood can be considered that it is an indicator of suboptimal sexual health. According to Penman-Aguilar et al. (2013), social determinants of health are “complex, integrated, and overlapping social structures and economic systems are linked to lack of opportunity and to a lack of resources to protect, improve, and maintain health” (pg. 6), here it is explained that teen motherhood can be beyond the family or the individual. This was an important part of the opening of their research because it explains how there are possible theories about community-level socioeconomic factors may also contribute to teen

The research suggests the young age of the mother with the outcome of the child, while a varying opinion of the research suggests the social disadvantage is the cause of the link of the child’s lesser development. Other analyses reported suggest girls who are disadvantaged in the realm of socioeconomic status, education-based factors, and other sociodemographic facets are most likely to become teen mothers.

In the same year, the percentage of births outside marriages among teenagers aged 15-19 were as high as 94%. This assessment indicate that teenage mothers or parents to be are less likely to engage in marital actions until during, or after the end of pregnancy (hhs.org). 64% of unmarried teen mothers also become high-school dropouts, exposing themselves to the lack of job skills which will thus, lead to financial deficits (marchofdimes.org).

Connell, Gold, Kawachi and Kennedy (2001) reported that teen birth is an important health issue, but causes for teen births are usually studied in terms of individual-level characteristics. To decrease the rates in teen births, it is important to understand the full picture. In the study the authors hypothesized that communities with higher income inequality would also exhibit higher teen birth rates (Connell et al., 2001). The study showed that communities with higher income inequality had significantly higher teen birth rates, especially among younger teens. This is a positive effect, poverty and income equality is significantly associated with teen birthrate. Teen birth rate was higher when poverty and income equality is

Adolescent motherhood should be a major concern for our country. Teens in the United States are more likely to give birth than any other industrialized country in the world. (Kearney & Levine, 2012) The article, Update on Adolescent Motherhood and Postpartum Depression states, “adolescent motherhood is a common and costly phenomenon with almost half a million American girls becoming mothers every year in the U.S.” (McGuinness, Medrano & Hodges, 2013) This is one reason why the topic of adolescent motherhood should be paid attention too. Why does the U.S. have the highest teen birth rate? Is it because of our sex education, by both parents and schools? Does economic opportunity contribute to the high teen birth rate? These are questions that come to mind when contemplating the U.S. teen birth rate; also teen birth rate varies in our own country. A teen in Mississippi is 4 times more likely to give birth than a teen living in New Hampshire. (Kearney & Levine, 2012)

Therefore, the responsibilities that women took on during the colonial times presented many as a housewife to independent working women during World War II. Because of the change, women prioritized their financial needs over starting a family, leading the decline of family formation at an early age. Nonetheless, when men came back from war, the United States underwent a baby booming era from 1946 to 1964, so women, including teenage girls started families. Starting from the 1970s, America’s employment rate increased causing many older women to stop forming families and work. Teenage girls, however, did not. Instead, the numbers for teen pregnancies skyrocketed to about 750,000. Through this came a second change that caused teenage childbearing to become an issue: Congress enacted Title X and welfare programs to help teen mothers, taxing taxpayers of America about 9.4 billion dollars yearly. The third change is the increasing amount of awareness and contraceptives provided to teenagers ever since the outburst in the 1960s. This is due to the prevention programs and reproductive health care facilities, causing teen pregnancies to decrease starting from the 1990s. The health clinics like Planned Parenthood offered teens subsidized contraceptive which is something that failed to occur in the 1960s because birth control pill was way

“Teenage childbearing is a symptom, not a cause, of poverty and economic immobility,” said Phillip B. Levine, an economist at Wellesley College, in an interview (Rich). Adolescents are becoming pregnant more often because they have a low economic status and disadvantages to those who are wealthy. In the United States, 34 percent of women aged 20-24 who have not received a high school diploma gave birth this year (Singh, et al.). Teenagers who have a low economic status are more susceptible to becoming pregnant at a young age because of less fortunate families, socioeconomic conditions, and cyclical behavior.

Adolescent parenthood has been an issue of public concern for many years. Adolescent parenthood has been the subject of numerous articles, public health reports, and public debate. So what makes adolescent parenthood such a popular topic of discussion and a reoccurring social problem? How does an adolescent parent relate to such public issues as education, poverty, and family? Researchers conduct literature reviews and original research in an effort to find a resolution to decrease adolescent pregnancy/parenthood and methods to improve the quality of life for adolescent parents. Although these articles share many themes and patterns, often their reason for conducting the research, methods, conclusion, and belief regarding adolescent pregnancy and parenthood differ.

Although the rate of teenage pregnancy in the United States has been on an overall decline, it remains the highest in the entire world. Teenage pregnancy is obviously still a problem in today's American society with roughly 97 per 1000 women aged 15-19, which rounds up to be roughly one million teenagers, becoming pregnant each year. Interestingly enough, 78% of these pregnancies are unintended. The births of these children are not only a problem for the parents and the families of the babies, but it is a huge problem and burden upon American Taxpayers. Taxpayers pay roughly 16.5 billion dollars every year to welfare and Medicaid programs to aid these young parents who are

Teenage pregnancy as a whole is important because it is imperative that the rates stay low. This may prevent many from having to go through the obstacles teenage parents endure. Through research we plan to investigate the correlation between teenage parents and the decline in their education. The investigation will focus on the difference in GPAs and dropout rates previous to conception and post-partum .To explore this research one must conduct a survey. The survey will ask questions that involve the parent’s demographics as well as their current status in school. Demographics should also include marital status of their parents, the age their parents conceived, and child hood experiences. These variables will help understand the likelihood and influences someone can have and how they conceived at this early age. Configuring dropout rates is important as well need to know how many parents have left since being pregnant. While surveying theses students it is very imperative that we

Previous research has suggested that an early transition to parenthood is associated with wide-ranging negative outcomes for the new mother and her baby. Some of the fallouts discussed are related to fewer life opportunities for teenage mothers, compared to later adulthood mothers, higher rates of psychosocial disadvantage, including leaving school early and decreased connectedness with peers, educational underachievement, prolonged welfare dependence, decreased marital opportunities, punitive parenting, maternal depression, and greater exposure to partner violence (Bardone, Moffitt, Dickson, & Silva, 1996; Brooks-Gunn & Chase-Lansdale, 1995; Coletta, 1983; Furstenberg, Brooks-Gunn, & Morgan, 1987; Klepinger, Lundberg, & Plotnick, 1995; Woodward & Fergusson, in press). On the other side of the dyad, children born to teenage mothers have been shown to be at an increased risk for a range of unfavorable

The problems of early teenage mothers are irrefutable. Some factors that are seen to contribute to teenage pregnancy are educational failure, poverty, unemployment and low self-esteem these are understood to be the results of a negative outcome of an early childhood. For example, recent studies suggest that most adolescent mothers had already made the decision to leave school before they had become pregnant. On the other hand, adolescents still in school when they give birth are as likely to graduate the same as their peers. It is not clear how well the adolescents with the most problems would have fared in the future even without early parenthood.

This study aims to know the socio-economic status that affects the early teenage pregnancy and is design to gain insight and understanding about the lives of adolescent mothers and experiencing the realities of motherhood.