Volume 4, Issue 2 (JUNE ISSUE 2023)                   johepal 2023, 4(2): 107-117 | Back to browse issues page


XML Print


Download citation:
BibTeX | RIS | EndNote | Medlars | ProCite | Reference Manager | RefWorks
Send citation to:

Morris S R. (2023). Teen Mothers Forgotten: The Gap Between High School and Higher Education. johepal. 4(2), 107-117. doi:10.61186/johepal.4.2.107
URL: http://johepal.com/article-1-356-en.html
Abstract:   (2010 Views)
Though the national teen birth rate has declined since 1991, teen motherhood is still associated with educational and lifetime disparities among women who give birth at ages 15-19. Using the Understanding America Study data, I examine teen mothers' educational and financial outcomes with nearest-neighbor matching. My sample is 1,335 mothers with 118 teen mothers, and I define teen mothers as mothers who had children at 15-17 years old. Compared to mothers who did not have children at ages 15-17, I find marginal significance that teen mothers are less likely to graduate high school at 10 percentage points less. More significantly, I find teen mothers to be 32 percentage points less likely to have an associate degree and 25 percentage points less likely to have a Bachelor's Degree, both at the 99% confidence level. Moreover, teen mothers are 15 percent more likely to live in poverty. These results imply a need for more support for teen mothers to complete higher education degrees beyond high school.
Full-Text [PDF 1609 kb]   (3135 Downloads)    
Type of Study: Research | Subject: Special
Received: 2023/04/18 | Accepted: 2023/06/10 | Published: 2023/06/30

References
1. Abadie, A., & Imbens, G.W. (2006). Large sample properties of matching estimators for average treatment effects. Econometrica, 74(1), 235-267. [DOI]
2. Barber, J. S., Kusunoki, Y., Gatny, H., & Melendez, R. (2017). The relationship context of young pregnancies. Law & Inequality, 35(2), 175-197. [Article]
3. Barshay, J. (2018). Fewer teenage mothers, but they still present a dropout puzzle for schools. U.S. News. [Article]
4. CDC. (2021). About teen pregnancy. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. [Article]
5. Chen, G. (2020, February 10). Pregnant in public school: Challenges and options. Public School Review. [Article]
6. Cunningham, S. (2021). Causal Inference: The Mixtape. Yale University Press.
7. DePillis, L. (2014, April 30). The U.S. still spends way more on teen pregnancy than family planning. The Washington Post. [Article]
8. Gault, B., & Zeisler, J. (2019, May 03). Support single mothers in college to make education more equitable for all. Stanford Social Innovation Review. [Article]
9. Gault, B., Milli, J., & Cruse, L. R. (2018). Investing in single mothers' higher education: Costs and benefits to individuals, families, and society. Institute for Women's Policy Research. [Article]
10. Gunderson, M., & Oreopolous, P. (2020). Returns to education in developed countries. In S. Bradley, & C. Green (Eds.), The Economics of Education: A Comprehensive Overview (pp. 39-51). Academic Press. [DOI]
11. Johansen, E. R., Nielsen, H. S., & Verner, M. (2020). Long‐term consequences of early parenthood. Journal of Marriage and Family, 82(4), 1286-1303. [DOI]
12. Levine, P. B. (2014). Teenage childbearing and labor market implications for women. IZA World of Labor. [DOI]
13. Livingston, G., & Thomas, D. (2019, August 02). Why is the teen birth rate falling? Pew Research Center. [Article]
14. Long, B. T. (2017, October 19). Helping women to succeed in Higher Education: Supporting student-parents with child care. The Hamilton Project. [Article]
15. Ma, J., Pender, M., & Welch, M. (2019). Education pays 2019: The benefits of higher education for individuals and society. Trends in Higher Education Series. CollegeBoard. [Article]
16. Manlove, J., & Lantos, H. (2018, January 11). Data point: Half of 20- to 29-year-old women who gave birth in their teens have a high school diploma. Child Trends. [Article]
17. NCSL. (2018, October 11). Teen pregnancy prevention. National Conference of State Legislatures. [Article]
18. Rosenbaum, P. (2020). Does early childbearing matter? New approach using Danish register data. Labour Economics, 65, 101852. [DOI]
19. Schulkind, L., & Sandler, D. H. (2019). The timing of teenage births: Estimating the effect on high school graduation and later-life outcomes. Demography, 56(1), 345-365. [DOI]
20. Shuger, L. (2012). Teen pregnancy and high school dropout: What communities can do to address these issues. Washington, DC: Power to Decide (formerly The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy) and America’s Promise Alliance. [Article]
21. Smithbattle, L. (2013). Reducing the stigmatization of teen mothers. MCN. The American Journal of Maternal Child Nursing, 38(4), 235-241. [DOI]
22. Spilovoy, T. (2021, August 02). Let's support college student mothers during the pandemic - and beyond. EdSurge. [Article]
23. The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy (2015). Briefly: Unplanned pregnancy among college students and strategies to address it. Washington, DC. [Article]
24. USCDornsife Center for Economic and Social Research. (2023). Understanding America Study. [Article]
25. Wall-Wieler, E., Roos, L. L., & Nickel, N. C. (2016). Teenage pregnancy: The impact of maternal adolescent childbearing and older sister's teenage pregnancy on a younger sister. BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth. Retrieved, 16, 120. [DOI]
26. World Population Review. (2021). Teen pregnancy rates by state. [Article]
27. World Population Review. (2023). Teen pregnancy rates by state. [Article]
28. Wymelenber, S. (1990). The dilemma of teenage parenthood. In Science and Babies: Private Decisions, Public Dilemmas (pp. 69-95). National Academy Press. [Article]

Rights and permissions
Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

© 2024 CC BY-NC 4.0 | Journal of Higher Education Policy And Leadership Studies

Designed & Developed by : Yektaweb