A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

The Research Base

Longitudinal Studies

Longitudinal studies with teen parents and their children for a generation or more probably offer the best evidence of their experiences. An interdisciplinary team of researchers from Johns Hopkins, Columbia, and Brigham Young Universities followed 1,758 children, born in Baltimore between 1960 and 1965, and their mothers over three decades to determine whether maternal age at birth was related to long-term outcomes for the children.

The children of teen mothers had poorer outcomes—including greater likelihood of dropping out of school, receiving welfare, and becoming teen parents themselves—when compared with the children of older mothers. The study concluded that maternal age appeared to contribute to the children's outcomes independently of other important factors, including educational level, poverty status, the child's birth order, race, and gender. Taking account of these other factors tended to reduce the contrasts in children's outcomes, but significant differences remained.

The study compared the children's self-sufficiency at ages 27 to 33 according to three measures: receipt of a high school diploma, financial independence from welfare, and postponement of childbearing until age 20 or older. Children whose mothers were 25 or older when they were born had the most successful outcomes on all criteria, while the children of teen mothers experienced consistently poorer consequences.

Seventy-two percent of the children of the older mothers graduated from high school, compared to 62 percent of the children of teenage mothers. The daughters of teen mothers were more than three times as likely to receive welfare than the daughters of older mothers. Childbearing patterns in the second generation differed sharply too. Forty percent of the daughters and 18 percent of the sons of teen mothers became teen parents, as compared with 22 percent of the daughters and 6 percent of the sons of older mothers.⁽¹⁰⁾

While this research suggests that adverse conditions in one generation can be perpetuated in the next, the findings should not be interpreted as dooming the children of adolescent mothers to poverty or to repeating their parents' behavior patterns. Teenage mothers can significantly improve the prospects for their families if they finish high school.

According to a University of Pennsylvania study that tracked teenage mothers over a period of 17 years, as the mothers managed to improve their economic circumstances, the children fared better as well. The teen mothers with the strongest commitments to school-those who had never failed a grade and those who continued with their classes during their pregnancies-were the most likely to be self-supporting later in life. One quarter of these women reached the middle-income brackets. The children of teen mothers who dropped out of school, remained on welfare, did not marry, or had additional children during adolescence were the least likely to beat the odds.⁽¹¹⁾ Utilizing longitudinal data, researchers have identified a set of characteristics that are common for teen parents. Failing a grade in school, behavior problems during childhood, poverty, and a stressed home environment all appear to increase the chances of having a baby before the age of twenty. Teens with none of these risk factors have an 11 percent chance of bearing a child. The probabilities increase sharply as the risk factors accumulate: 29 percent for teens who have one of these characteristics, 35 percent for teens with two, and 50 percent for teens with three or more.⁽¹²⁾

It is not surprising that children fare better when their parents are adults rather than teenagers. Young mothers are less likely to possess the maturity, patience, and good judgment that older mothers acquire and that parenting demands. Few of the young mothers are married (more than three-fourths of teen births in 1996 were out of wedlock), and they are less likely to receive support from, or even remain in regular contact with, the fathers of their children. Compared with older mothers, teens are more likely to be hampered by disadvantaged family backgrounds (persistent poverty, minimal job experience, instability and related problems) as children and to lack the financial and emotional resources required to raise children of their own.⁽¹³⁾

This base of research strongly indicates improving educational opportunities for teen parents as a principal means of improving outcomes for their children. In addition to equipping the teens with fundamental knowledge and skills they will need in the work force, schools can help teens become more responsive parents by offering classes in child development and parenting education. They can also provide crucial supports and linkages to other services that young parents and their children need, including quality child care and health care.

A hospitable learning environment can make a huge difference by motivating students to complete high school and by providing an often-needed anchor in their lives. There is evidence that adolescent mothers are less likely to have additional children while teenagers if they return to school promptly after having a baby, become involved in school activities, and stay in school until graduation.⁽¹⁴⁾

Expand the Database

Conference participants urged OERI to support longitudinal research to broaden available information on the long-term effects of adolescent childbearing on parents, children, grandparents, and society as a whole. They also asked OERI to determine if new sources of longitudinal data and definitions of outcome measures are needed for intergenerational analyses, as well as for detailed findings for a wider variety of subgroups.

Existing studies measure outcomes like educational attainment, family income and poverty status, welfare receipt, as well as changes in the characteristics of the household (family size, marriage). The Hopkins team called for further research to explain race and gender differences in outcomes, i.e., detailed analyses that typically depends upon the availability of large and complete data sets.

Evaluate and Assist Programs

Conference participants asked OERI to support rigorous evaluations of programs for pregnant and parenting teens, pointing out that relatively few programs have been evaluated.

In discussing a wide variety of current models for providing services to teen parents and their children, conference participants relied chiefly upon descriptive information about program characteristics and results. Evaluations, including experiments that randomly assign teens to a particular program or a control group, are needed to determine whether these programs make a difference in long-term outcomes for participants and their children. Although this type of research costs more than simpler studies, the investment in rigorous research and evaluation can encourage shifts in resources to the most effective approaches and away from efforts that do not work.

Conference participants urged OERI to establish a clearinghouse to gather, publish, and disseminate information about local programs serving pregnant and parenting teens. With the aid of a Web site, a clearinghouse could become a prime source of current, up-to-date information about program innovations and best practices. Identifying research about teen parent families and programs from a variety of different disciplines would facilitate dissemination of findings to a much wider audience.

Speakers emphasized that educators and others who deal with teen parents and their families need to understand and assimilate the findings of existing studies. Educators, for example, are frequently unaware of important studies of teenage pregnancy and parenting issues, even though the work has been widely reported in the health and social welfare literature. The importance of wider dissemination of policy-relevant research to legislators and other education policymakers was frequently cited throughout the conference.

[Executive Summary]

[Conference Themes and Policy Implications]