The Causes of Declining Economic Well-being among Women Who Had Children as Teenagers

The economic well-being of 25-year-old women who began childbearing as teenagers declined during the 1970s and 1980s, whereas it did not for women who delayed childbearing until they were at least 20 years old. The decline in economic well-being appears to be due to a number of factors that changed over the last several decades, including men's wages and hours worked, local unemployment rates, and welfare benefit levels. The single most important factor contributing to the declining economic well-being was the decreasing likelihood that women who began childbearing as teenagers would be married later in life. Fewer children, higher educational attainment, and higher employment rates kept the decline from being steeper than it might otherwise have been. The Causes of Declining Economic Well-Being among Women Who Had Children as Teenagers Women were less likely to have children as teenagers in the 1980s than they were in the three preceding decades (National Center for Health Statistics 1951-1989). Nevertheless, teenage childbearing is a larger social problem today than it was in previous decades because the economic consequences of teenage childbearing have worsened. A recent study conducted by this researcher found that the economic well-being of 25-year-old women who began childbearing as teenagers declined during the 1970s and 1980s, whereas it did not for women who delayed childbearing until they were at least 20 years old (Butler 1992). This suggests that the increase in poverty among young families during the 1970s and 1980s (Johnson, Sum, and Weill 1992) can be accounted for by the decrease in the economic well-being of families in which the mother began childbearing as a teenager. In this paper, I examine the reasons why the negative economic consequences of adolescent childbearing became more serious during the 1970s and 1980s. Research on the recent increase in poverty among young families offers several explanations that may be useful in understanding the reasons behind the declining economic well-being of women who began their childbearing as teenagers. First, rates of single parenthood have been increasing (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1990a). Eggebeen and Lichter (1991) found that about one-third of the increase in child poverty between 1960 and 1988 and 51 percent of the increase in child poverty between 1980 and 1988 were due to increases in the proportion of single-parent families. Given the greater declines in the economic well-being of women who began their childbearing as teenagers, (1) increases in single-parent families had to have occurred disproportionately among women who had their first child as a teenager, or (2) single mothers who had postponed childbearing until at least their 20s must have been better able to escape poverty than single mothers who bore children as teenagers. 2 Changing macroeconomic conditions over the last two decades may also account, in part, for the increasingly negative economic consequences of teenage childbearing. The wages of young men declined between 1973 and 1990, particularly for young men with a high school education or less (Johnson and Sum 1987; Johnson, Sum, and Weill 1988, 1992). Such young men are likely marriage partners for teenage mothers (Card and Wise 1978), and their poor performance in the labor market may not only have caused a decrease in the family income of teenage mothers who married, but may also have contributed to the declining marriage rate of teenage mothers. William J. Wilson (1987) and John D. Kasarda (1989) argue that the decline in the number of blue-collar jobs in urban areas during the 1970s left low-skilled, inner-city black men without work and, consequently, decreased their attractiveness as marriage partners for black women. However, white men with low educations and skills and the women they would marry should also be negatively affected if they live in areas where manufacturing industries have declined. Indeed, Daniel T. Lichter, Felicia B. LeClere, and Diane K. McLaughlin (1991) found that local measures of male nonemployment rates and average earnings largely explained local variation in the proportion of currently married young women, both black and white. Changing values may also account for some of the increase in single parenthood and subsequent poverty. Increased public tolerance of divorce and out-of-wedlock births may have affected marital decisions independent of macroeconomic factors (Jencks 1988; Preston 1984; Vinovskis 1988). This argument is supported by evidence that marriage rates have fallen among men of all education and wage levels (Jencks 1988; Johnson, Sum, and Weill 1992; Schoen and Kluegel 1988). Christopher Jencks points out that middle-class women may have gained from the increased personal and sexual freedom, but lower-class women, who are economically vulnerable, have suffered. 3 Another factor that may have contributed to the decline in economic well-being among women who began childbearing as teenagers is the decline in the real value of welfare benefit levels during the 1970s and early 1980s. Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) benefit levels decreased by 31 percent between 1972 and 1988 (Committee on Ways and Means 1990, pp. 962-65). Because teenage mothers are disproportionately represented on the welfare rolls (Moore 1978), this decrease can be expected to have negatively affected their incomes more than it affected the incomes of women who delayed childbearing. In addition to declining AFDC benefit levels, AFDC eligibility criteria became more restrictive and, therefore, a smaller proportion of poor, single-parent families received welfare. During the 1970s and 1980s, inflation eroded income eligibility, and the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1981 restricted it still further (Moffitt and Wolf 1987). The percentage of poor children in families receiving AFDC benefits fell from a high of 80 percent in 1973 to a low of 50 percent in 1982 and had risen to 56 percent by 1987 (Committee on Ways and Means 1990, p. 577). Changes in government in-kind benefit programs for low-income families have been complex, and it is not clear what their aggregate influence has been on women's economic well-being since the mid-1970s. Current Population Survey estimates of the market value of in-kind benefits received in 1979 and 1986 (two nonrecessionary years) show decreases in public and subsidized housing and school lunches (4 percent and 16 percent respectively) (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1987, Table A). Federal outlays for Food Stamps and Medicaid increased by 8 percent and 25 percent respectively.' The increase in poverty between 1979 and 1986 is slightly higher when in-kind benefits are counted than when they are not (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1987, Table C), which indicates that in-kind benefits have become less successful in preventing poverty. Thus, the evidence suggests that changes in AFDC policy led to increasingly lower economic well-being among women who began their 4 childbearing as teenagers and in-kind benefits for low-income families did not substantially counteract this trend, at least between 1979 and 1986. But not all changes in society during the 1970s and 1980s led to a more precarious financial position for women who began childbearing as teenagers. Teenage mothers were more likely to graduate from high school by the mid-1980s than they had been in earlier years (Upchurch and McCarthy 1989; Duncan and Hoffman 1991). In addition, the subsequent fertility of teenage mothers declined. The rate of second, third, and fourth births to teenagers decreased between 1965 and 1975 (National Center for Health Statistics 1989, Table 1-15). This suggests that recent cohorts of women who began childbearing as teenagers have become more successful in limiting their family size and should therefore have an easier time avoiding poverty than did previous cohorts of women who had their first child as a teenager. Finally, the employment of women with young children increased (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1990b, Table 636), which, other things being equal, should have increased their economic well-being. In summary, the literature suggests that the economic well-being of women who began their childbearing as teenagers declined during the 1970s and 1980s due to increases in out-of-wedlock births and marital disruption, declining employment and wages of young men, declining welfare benefits, and stricter welfare eligibility criteria. But these trends may have been at least partially offset by increased educational attainment, increased employment, and decreased fertility among early childbearers. In this study, I explore the extent to which these factors account for the decline in economic well-being among 25-year-old women who had their first child as a teenager. First, I examine the extent to which the decline in the women's economic well-being can be explained by changes in local economic conditions and welfare policy. Second, I investigate the extent to which the decline in economic well-being can be explained by changes in women's behavior during the 1970s and 1980s, specifically, changes in their marital status, whether their first birth had occurred 5 within marriage, their educational attainment, and the number of children they had borne. Finally, I consider changes in the main sources of income that make up my measures of economic well-being, specifically, the wages and hours worked by women and their husbands.