Some of this is a little older, but I would imagine it's still not too out-of-date. Some of the info is American, some is Canadian. The book by Leon Dash is from 2003, and the Canadian articles are from 1999. Everything else's date is marked accordingly, and if I don't know the date then I marked as such.

I will repost my full notes later on, this is just the more fact-based stuff.


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From: Section 1 findings of the ‘Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. (Findings from Congress) [AMERICAN STATS]

- Pg. 129: An effective strategy to combat teenage pregnancy must address the issue of male responsibility, including statutory rape culpability and prevention. The increase of teenage pregnancy among the youngest girls is particularly severe and is linked to predatory sexual advances by men who are significantly older.

A) It is estimated that by the late 1980’s, the rate of girls age 14 and under giving birth increased 26 percent.

B) Data indicates that at least half the children born to teenage mothers are fathered by adult men. Available data suggests that almost 70 percent of births to teenage girls are fathered by men over age 20.

C) Surveys of teen mothers have revealed that a majority of such mothers have histories of sexual and physical abuse, primarily with older adult men.


- Pgs. 129 – 130: The negative consequences of an out-of-wedlock birth on the mother, the child, the family, and society are well documented as follows:

A) Young women 17 and under who give birth outside of marriage are more likely to go on public assistance and to spend more years on welfare once enrolled. These combined effects of “younger and longer” increase total AFDC (Aid to Families with Dependent Children) costs per household by 25 percent to 30 percent for 17 year olds.

B) Children born out-of-wedlock have a substantially higher risk of being born at a very low or moderately low birth weight.

C) Children born out-of-wedlock are more likely to experience low verbal cognitive attainment, as well as more child abuse, and neglect.

D) Children born out-of-wedlock are more likely to have lower cognitive scores, lower educational aspirations, and a greater likelihood of becoming teenage parents themselves.

E) Bring born out-of-wedlock significantly reduces the chances of the child growing up to have an intact marriage.

F) Children born out-of-wedlock are 3 times more likely to be on welfare when they grow up.


- Pg. 130 - ...nevertheless, the negative consequences of raising children in single-parent homes are well documented as follows:

A) Only 9 percent of married-couples with children under 18 years of age have income below the national poverty level. In contrast, 46 percent of female-headed households with children under 18 years of age are below the national poverty level.

B) Among single-parent families, nearly ½ of the mothers who never married received AFDC while only 1/5 of divorced mothers received AFDC.

C) Children born into families receiving welfare assistance are 3 times more likely to be on welfare when they reach adulthood than children born into families not receiving welfare.

D) Mothers under 20 years of age are at the greatest risk of bearing low weight babies.

E) The younger the single-parent mother, the less likely she is to finish high school.

F) Young women who have children before finishing high school are more likely to receive welfare assistance for a longer period of time.

G) (not included because it wasn't relevant to the notes I needed for my paper)

H) The absence of a father in the life of a child has a negative effect on school performance and peer adjustment.

I) Children of teenage single parents have lower cognitive scores, lower educational aspirations, and a greater likelihood of becoming teenage parents themselves.

J) Children of single-parent homes are 3 times more likely to fail and repeat a year in grade school than are children from intact 2-parent families.

K) Children from single-parent homes are 4 time more likely to be expelled or suspended from school.

L) Neighbourhoods with larger percentages of youth aged 12 through 20 and areas with higher percentages of single-parent households have higher rates of violent crime.

M) Of those youth held for criminal offenses within the State juvenile justice system, only 29.8 percent lived primarily in a home with both parents. In contrast to those incarcerated youth, 73.9 percent of the 62,800,000 children in the Nation’s resident population were living with both parents.


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From: “When Children Want Children: The Urban Crisis if Teenage Childbearing”, by Leon Dash. [AMERICAN - book, 1999]

- Pg. 25: Beyond human and medical costs, teenage childbearing has a direct impact on local and national public-assistance budgets. For example, it has been calculated that approximately 60 percent of the children who are born to unmarried mothers are the recipients of welfare.


- Pgs. 25 – 26: [Research from the Child health and Development Section of the National Institutes of Health]

- Moreover, at least 23 percent of teenage mothers said they intentionally became pregnant. Forty-eight percent of adolescent mothers said later that they regretted the timing of the birth of their first child.

- Early unmarried parenthood is generally tied to reduced academic achievement, marginal income-earning capacity, and welfare dependence. Teenage mothers tend to have larger families by the time they are in their thirties and forties compared to women who had their first child after age twenty. Married teenage couples tend to break up at a higher rate than married adults.

- The consequences of early childbearing become alarming when you look at the impact of teenage pregnancy on the infants of adolescents. The children of unmarried teenage mothers are generally in poor physical health. There is a consistent tendency for the children of teenage mothers to have slightly lower IQ scores than do children of older mothers when the children are measured at several years of age, up to age seven. The children of girls seventeen years and younger are less likely to adapt to the disciplines of school than the children of older mothers. The children of adolescent mothers are at higher risk to be born at a low birth weight and, therefore, at a higher risk to suffer lifelong learning disabilities.

- Children of parents seventeen and younger have lower cognitive scores than children born of parents eighteen years old and older. The children of teenage mothers have a greater chance of living in a disrupted home while in high school, have lower academic aptitude as teenagers, and are at high risk of repeating their parents’ pattern of early parenthood. The best predictor of a teenage mother’s age at first birth is her adolescent mother’s age at first birth.

- Since the early 1970’s, an increasing number of adolescents have become sexually active before marriage and at earlier ages. Research reveals that the average lapse of time between the beginning of sexual activity for a teenage girl and her first appearance at a family-planning clinic is six months to a year. For an average of 36 percent of the girls, the inducement for their first clinic visit is the fear that they may already be pregnant. There are more than 400,000 abortions for teenagers in American each year.


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From: “Day-to-day Ethical Issues in the Care of Young Parents and Their Children”, by Miriam Kaufman. [CANADIAN]

- Pg. 28: Adolescents who are mothers live in poverty. If they are not poor to start off with, they generally become poor. It is the exception to escape this fate. It seems that these young women (and the odd father who sticks around) are poor because there are few job opportunities for young people with low levels of education. They are not eligible for the maternity benefits that unionized employees get. There is often only one parent in the household. Many come from poor families that cannot provide enough financial support to make them secure. Many exist on shrinking welfare cheques, augmented by regular trips to the food bank. Waiting lists for subsidized child care are getting longer and longer, and the teen may have to make a choice between staying out of school or using substandard day care. Probably because of increased psychosocial problems, children of poverty are at a higher risk for mental health problems and for health problems related to poor nutrition and overcrowding.


- Pg. 29: Both infancy and adolescence are developmentally dense times of life. That is, both the child and the adolescence parent are changing at a rapid pace. The developmental needs of the teen and her child may clash, and one or both might suffer as a result. Younger teens have poorly developed abstract reasoning skills. This means that they have a hard time generalizing from a specific experience or piece of knowledge, and applying general knowledge to a specific situation.


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From: “The Construction of Teen Parenting and the Decline of Adoption”, by Lea Caragata. [CANADIAN]

- Pg. 107: Scott reports, unsurprisingly, that about 80 percent of teen pregnancies are unplanned. Although pregnancy, birthday and parenting may appear “romantic” and desirable at the time of intercourse or when pregnancy is acknowledged, and having a child is strongly associated with meeting psycho-social needs, teen parenting is in a quite other sense “problematic.” Teen pregnancy is of concern because of how it affects those directly involved: “Teenagers are often unprepared socially (eg – high unemployment, lack of education) and physically to start families. Consequently, they are far more likely than adults to bring a child into a poverty level situation and to be forced to raise the child on welfare.


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From: “Changing High Risk Policies and Programs to Reduce High-Risk Sexual Behaviours”, by Maureen Jessop Orton. [CANADIAN]

- Pg. 126: Why should we be concerned about pregnancy in adolescence? Pregnancy in adolescence is associated with higher health risks, both short and long term, to both mother and child, such as toxaemia, premature birth, and low birthweight. (Direct determinants of low birthweight have been identified as smoking, low prepregnancy weight, poor weight gain during pregnancy, poor maternal nutrition, maternal morbidity, alcohol intake; and multiple births. Socioeconomic factors are indirect indeterminants, including youth, low income, low education, and unemployment. Many low-birthweight babies are premature. Low birthweight is a major risk factor for infant morbidity, especially in the first month.


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From: “Social Bonds and Teen Pregnancy”, by LaWanda Ravoira and Andrew L. Cherry, Jr. [AMERICAN - book] [date unknown]

- Pg.2: Teen pregnancy alone puts young girls at risk of increased incidence of severe anemia, pregnancy toxemia, labour complications, and later development of cervical cancer. Although some studies suggest that early pregnancy reduces the risk of cervical cancer, the girls in this study are at risk as a result of their lack of prenatal care, poor nutrition, and lifestyles. The infants of teenaged mothers are reported to be at increased risk of infant perinatal and neonatal mortality. This is largely due to the prevalence of low birth weight.


- Pg.7: Likewise, early childbearing impacts negatively upon society because in many cases the teenagers cannot realize their full potential educationally or in the job market. In the study by Moore (197 cool , these youths were more likely to be dependent upon welfare and to remain longer on the welfare rolls. Because of the young mother’s status of homelessness, several years can be added to the number of years she and her child(ren) will be on welfare.


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From: “Teen Mothers and the Revolving Welfare Door”, by Kathleen Mullan Harris. [AMERICAN book - date unknown]

- Pg. 1: Compared to women who delay childbearing beyond their teen years, women who have their first child as a teenager attain less education, work less, earn less, are more dependent on federal aid, have less support from a husband, have more children, and spend more time as a single mother.


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From: “Child Development”, by Laura E. Berk. [textbook] [CANADIAN - 2003] (I used this in one of my college classes a few years ago)

- Pg. 209: Teenagers are many times more likely to be poor than are agemates who postpone childbearing. Their experiences often include low parental warmth and involvement; poor school performance; alcohol and drug use; adult models of unmarried parenthood, limited education and unemployment; and residence in neighbourhoods where other adolescents also display these risks. Many of these young people seem to turn to early parenthood as a way to move into adulthood when educational and career avenues are unavailable.


- Pg. 209: The lives of pregnant teenagers are often troubled in many ways, and after the baby is born, their circumstances tend to worsen in at least three respects:

- Educational attainment. Giving birth before age 18 reduces the likelihood of finishing high school. Only 50 percent of adolescent mothers graduate with either a diploma or a general equivalency diploma (GED) in the U.S., compared with 96 percent of girls who wait to become parents.

- Marital patterns. Teenage motherhood reduces the chances of marriage. When these mothers do marry, they are more likely to divorce than are their peers who delay childbearing. Consequently, teenage mothers spend more of their parenting years as single parents.

- Economic circumstances. Because of the low educational attainment, marital instability and poverty, many teenage mothers are on welfare. If they are employed, their limited education restricts them to unsatisfying, low-paid jobs. Adolescent fathers work more hours than their nonparent agemates in the years following their child’s birth. Perhaps for this reason, they obtain less education and are also economically disadvantaged.


- Pg. 209: Compared with adult mothers, adolescent mothers more often have psychological disorders, interact more negatively with the child’s father, know less about child development, have unrealistically high expectations of infants, perceive their babies as more difficult, and interact less efficiently with them.


- Pg. 209: Their children tend to score low on intelligence tests, achieve poorly in school, and engage in disruptive social behaviour.


- Pg. 210: ...Janet hardy and her collaborators conducted a 30 year follow-up of over 1,700 inner-city mothers (first generation) and their children (second generation). The first generation became parents between 1960 and 1964 – about 28 percent as teenagers... adolescent parenthood was linked to a wide array of unfavourable rearing conditions, which predicted intergenerational continuity in teenage childbearing. For example, compared with second generation daughters who postponed parenthood, daughters who became teenage mothers were more likely to have grown up in a single-parent household, had four or more siblings (reducing parental attention and resources available to each), scored lower in IQ and reading skill, repeated one or more grades, and (in adolescence) had a higher frequency of police arrests for delinquency.


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From: “Lifespan Development”, by Helen Bee, Denise Boyd, and Paul Johnson. [textbook] [CANADIAN - 2003]

- Pg. 302: In 1997, the percentage of pregnant women aged 15 – 19 ending their pregnancy in abortion (50.3%) surpassed the percentage of live births (46.8%) and miscarriage or stillbirths (2.9%) for the first time.


- Pg. 302: Whether a girl becomes pregnant during her teenaged years depends on many of the same factors that predict sexual activity in general. The younger the girl is when she becomes sexually active, the more likely she is to become pregnant. Among teenaged girls from poor families, from single-parent families or from families with relatively uneducated parents, pregnancy rates are higher. Likewise, girls whose mothers became sexually active at an early age and who bore their first child early are likely to follow a similar path.


- Pgs. 302 – 303: In contrast, the likelihood of pregnancy is lower among teenaged girls who do well in school and have strong educational aspirations. Such girls are both less likely to be sexually active at an early age and more likely to use contraception if they are sexually active. Girls who have good communication about sex and contraception with their mothers are also less likely to get pregnant


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From: “Family Influences on Adolescent Sexual and Contraceptive Behaviour”, by Brent C. Miller. [journal article] [AMERICAN - date unknown]

- Pg. 1: Several investigators have gone beyond the bivariate relationship to show that single or divorced parents’ more permissive sexual attitudes, lesser parental supervision, and parents’ own dating activity help explain why some adolescents in some single parent families are at increased risk of pregnancy.


- Pgs. 1 – 2: Recent studies have found that traumatic child or adolescent experiences, especially those involving sexual abuse, are related to higher adolescent pregnancy risk, both through earlier onset of voluntary sexual intercourse and less consistent use of contraception.


- Pg. 2: There is abundant evidence that parents’ SES is related to adolescent pregnancy; adolescents whose parents have higher education and income are more likely to postpone sexual intercourse and to use contraception.


- Pgs. 3 - 4: Living with a single parent, and having older sexually active siblings ore pregnant/parenting teenage sisters; residing in a disorganized/dangerous neighbourhood and lower SES family; and being a victim of sexual abuse all place teens at elevated risk of adolescent pregnancy. Several biological variables (timing of pubertal development, hormone levels) are related to adolescent pregnancy risk because of their association with adolescent sexual behaviour.