Between the 1960s and early 1990s, unprecedented numbers of unwed teenage women gave birth and then used public assistance to support themselves and their children. To outraged conservatives, this trend proved that teenagers were abusing the welfare system by having children outside marriage and then using welfare money to support their indolent lifestyles. The liberals counter-argued that since an overwhelming majority of single teenage mothers were poor and socially disadvantaged, they would have received welfare irrespective of whether they had postponed childbirth. The liberals therefore believed that poverty and lack of opportunity for upward social and economic mobility were the underlying causes of single teenage births and welfare use. Set against the backdrop of this debate and using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youths data, in this study I follow the life experiences of 225 single teenage parents between 1979 and 1993 in order to examine how parenthood affected their educational or welfare status. I also examine how their experiences differed from their peers, who were of the same age but had children either after they were married or after they were relatively older. Furthermore. I study the influence of childhood socio-economic status on men and women's later life chances, regardless of their marital and fertility status. Lastly, I compare the educational attainment of single teenage mothers with that of single teenage fathers. My findings show that irrespective of their socio-economic backgrounds, having children as teenagers increased single women's chances of receiving welfare for longer periods. However, their childhood socio-economic status had a much larger impact on men and women's later educational status than their age and marital status at childbirth. Finally, even though single teenage mothers experienced greater day to day child-care responsibilities, their educational attainment was at par with that of single teenage fathers / acase@tulane.edu
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TULANE/oai:http://digitallibrary.tulane.edu/:tulane_23934 |
| Date | January 2002 |
| Contributors | Ghosh, Mistu (Author), Wright, James D (Thesis advisor) |
| Publisher | Tulane University |
| Source Sets | Tulane University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | Access requires a license to the Dissertations and Theses (ProQuest) database., Copyright is in accordance with U.S. Copyright law |
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