As the Pendulum Swings: Teenage Childbearing and Social Concern Author(s): Frank F. Furstenberg, Jr.

Reviewed work(s): Source: Family Relations, Vol. 40, No. 2 (Apr., 1991), pp. 127-138 Published by: National Council on Family Relations Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/585470 . Accessed: 17/05/2012 14:10
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......fam

il

As

the

Pendulum Teenage and

Swings:

Childbearing

Social Concern*
Frank F. Furstenberg, Jr.**
This article assesses the evidence for revisionist views of teenage childbearing. These theories suggest that the perception of teenage pregnancy as a growing social problem has been caused by the political agendas of certain interest groups; the consequences of early childbearing have been exaggerated; and that pregnancy among disadvantaged teens may be an adaptive response to poverty. The article first considers demographic patterns and fertility trends that point to why teenage pregnancy and childbearing was regarded as a growing problem in the 1970s. Next, the consequences of early childbearing are considered. Finally, the notion that early childbearing is the desired outcome of a rational choice is considered in light of survey and ethnographic data.

years ago, the political scientist Anthony Downs (1972) labeled the stages of public response to social problems as the "issue-attention cycle." The sequence, Downs suggested, often begins with a "pre-problem" stage when conditions are sometimes far worse than after discovery. Recognition of the problem ignites "alarm and euphoric enthusiasm" accompanied by an urgent demand for a solution. The search for a solution creates frustration ushering in a stage of despair and declining concern. The cycle concludes with a postproblem stage, when the issue lingers in "a twilight realm of lesser attention or spasmodic recurrences of interest" (p. 40). Whether or not this seemingly inevitable sequence applies to all social problems, it captures rather well the short history of teenage childbearing. Though early marriage and premarital pregnancy were minor public concerns during the baby boom era, teenage pregnancy and childbearing drew little public notice (Burchinal, 1965). The issue only became a troubling trend in the late 1960s. The first mention of teenage parenthood in the Reader's Guide to Periodic Literature appeared in 1970 (Baldwin, 1976; Furstenberg, 1976). By the mid-1970s it had become an urgent crisis (Select Committee on Population, 1978). Since then, it has attracted almost limitless attention from scholars, policymakers, and the public at large. A veritable industry serving these different constituencies has developed over the past two decades-the sure sign of a thrivingsocial problem (Chilman, 1983; Congressional Budget Office, 1990;
FAMILY RELATIONS

Some

Hayes, 1987; Hofferth & Hayes, 1987; Moore & Burt, 1982). But of late, the tide of interest seems to be ebbing. Whether because of frustration, boredom, or disillusionment, some observers have come to believe that the threat associated with early childbearing was overstated. These doubts have emerged from different quarters but the skeptics share a common perspective: The issue has been misconstrued by careless and sometimes biased research, and it has been exaggerated and distorted by misguided reformers (Geronimus, 1987; Vinovskis, 1988). These commentaries, not surprisingly, have provoked disbelief and outrage by scholars in the field who have replied that the critics, not they, have distorted the facts (Hofferth, 1988; Pittman, 1990). But coming as they do from serious researchers, the revisionist views cannot be easily dismissed. They demand that academics reexamine their assumptions and their evidence about how the timing of parenthood is linked to social and economic disadvantage. And, they compel policymakers to ask whether they are shooting at the right target.'
*Paper originally presented as the Duvall Distinguished Lecture at the annual conference of the National Council on Family Relations on November 11,1990, in Seattle, WA. Julien Teitleris gratefullyacknowledged for analytical and editorial advice. MarianneSullivan helped prepare the tables. Helpful comments to an earlier draft were provided by KristinMoore. **FrankF. Furstenberg,Jr. is the ZellerbachFamily Professor of Sociology at the Universityof Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104. Key Words:consequences of teenage pregnancy, sexuality, social problem, teenage childbearing, teenage pregnancy. (Family Relations, 1991, 40, 127-138.)

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127

Reexamining Teenage Childbearing

This article is organized around a set of interrelated questions posed by revisionist scholars. First, was the issue of teenage childbearing socially manufacturedto suit the political agenda of certain moral entrepreneurs? In his book An "Epidemic"of Adolescent Pregnancy? historian Maris Vinovskis (1988) claims as much by arguing that a coalition of social scientists, policymakers, and family planning advocates organized information to make it appear that teenage childbearing was a growing problem when, in fact, rates had been dropping off. According to Vinovskis, these interest groups managed to convince politicians that the prevention of early childbearing was an important route to controlling the mounting social and economic costs of poverty. The perception of teenage childbearing as a growing crisis provided a rare opportunity for liberals, who wanted to expand services, and conservatives, interested in controlling welfare costs, to make common cause. Kristin Luker (1990), a sociologist who has been examining the way Americans deal with sexuality, reaches a similar conclusion. She claims that the social construction of teenage childbearing was sharply divorced from demographic reality. Citing demographic evidence that teenagers are a shrinking fraction of all childbearers, Luker suggests that adolescent childbearing has been a convenient cultural category for labeling black unwed mothers. But she notes that such labels ignore the fact that most non-marital childbearing occurs among older whites. The focus on teenagers diverts public attention away from deeper structural sources of family change. Luker's critique goes well beyond a claim that the issue was misrepresented. Unlike Vinovskis, who does not dispute that early parenthood is costly to individuals and society, Luker expresses some doubts about the magnitude of these costs. This theme -that the adverse effects of teenage childbearing have been greatly exaggerated-is the second and more profound assertion of the revisionists. On the basis of recent studies, Luker questions the proposition that teenage childbearing necessarily produces devastating or even negative outcomes for young mothers. Indeed, she further argues that early childbearing may be an adaptive family solution to problems faced by disadvantaged young peopie-racial discrimination and economic marginality.
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This third theme, that early childbearing may be an adaptive response to social and economic deprivation, has been most forcefully advanced by another revisionist scholar. Arlene Geronimus (1987), a public health researcher, believes that poor black teenagers may intentionally begin childbearing earlier as a way of responding to extreme economic deprivation that threatens the health of their newborns. On the basis of the evidence showing rising levels of neonatal mortality among black women in their late 20s, Geronimus asserts that younger black childbearers produce healthier births. Moreover, Geronimus believes that the declining prospects of stable marriage create incentives for women to have children in their teen years when they can expect maximum economic and social support from kin. Consequently, she concludes that early childbearing may be a culturally rational response to deprivation and discrimination.

New Republic by Hulbert, 1990, and Geronimus' response, 1990b). This article assesses how well the evidence substantiates the revisionists' views and points out directions that further research might take in order to resolve conflicting empirical results. The discussion begins with a review of key demographic trends pertaining to the dispute over why teenage childbearing emerged as a social problem in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Then I will take up the questions raised by Luker and Geronimus of whether the consequences of early childbearing are as deleterious as is commonly believed. Finally, I will discuss whether early parenthood is an adaptive response to poverty that contributes positively to the life chances of young parents and their offspring. A concluding comment is devoted to confused policymakers and funding agencies who are trying to decide whether or not to continue to allocate scarce resources to this special population.

In her most recent and, as yet, unpublished paper, Geronimus (1990a) broadens her attack on those who believe that teenage childbearing is a special cause for concern. Geronimus argues that the negative consequences of childbearing have been overestimated because of researchers' failure to recognize that many teenage mothers are deeply disadvantaged before they ever have children. When this selectivity is taken into account, the effect of early childbearing is trivial and may be even positive. Speaking at the meetings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Geronimus (1990a) asserted: I would like to go on record today in opposition to the view that teenage childbearing is self-destructive, irrational, or anti-social behavior.. .teenage childbearing is a sensible response to poverty that can ameliorate some of the negative consequences of poverty including the increased risk of infant mortality and the already curtailed socioeconomic opportunities that are facts of life for the poor. If correct, this interpretationof teenage childbearing has profound policy implications. It suggests that efforts to prevent early childbearing are misguided and doomed to failure. Not surprisingly, the press attention given to her claims has aroused uneasiness among public and private funders and advocacy groups who have developed programs to combat early childbearing (for a recent discussion of the Geronimus debate, see the article in The
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Demographic Trends and the Definition of Teenage Childbearing as a Social Problem

Why was teenage childbearing discovered in the late 1960s when fertility rates among teenagers had actually been declining for almost a decade? There is no single or simple answer to this question. But I do not share Vinovskis' or Luker's views that social scientists misread and moral entrepreneurs misrepresented the fertility trends to advance their objectives. Rather, I believe that the emergence of teenage childbearing as a public issue was an understandable, if not inevitable, response to two importantdemographic patterns. First of all, the huge baby boom cohort had entered their middle and late teens by the 1960s. And second, the traditional response to premarital pregnancyhasty marriage-became less socially desirable. The sheer size of the baby boom contributed to the widespread impression that teenage childbearing was growing. Even though birthrates for teenagers, as for older women, fell steeply and steadily during the 1960s and 1970s (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1986), the absolute number of teenage births continued to rise until 1970 partly because of the huge growth in the teenage population. From 1960 to 1975, the number of women ages 15 to 19 grew by 52% compared to a 33% increase of all
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Figure 1.

Births to all teens in the United States, to non-married teens under age 18, 1960 to 1988 and to non-married

teens,

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800 number of births, in thousanids

600

400

200

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1970

1975

1980

1988

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women of childbearing ages, 15 to 44. Their growing numbers and their relatively slower decline in fertility meant that teenagers accounted for a much larger share of all births. This proportion rose from 14% in 1960 to 18% in 1970 and to 19% in 1975 (see Tables 1 and 2 for figures and sources), the year before the Alan Guttmacher Institute published Eleven Million Teenagers, the report that is credited for placing the issue on the hit parade of social problems. Demographers saw a declining rate of teenage fertility; but, service providers saw their case loads of pregnant teens and young mothers grow by leaps and bounds. Perceptions of the problem were also shaped by the new style of managing parenthood by pregnant teenagers. For the first time ever, a significant proportion of pregnant teenagers were electing not to marry; many were instead choosing to remain in school. In the baby boom era when close to half of all females married by age 20, early marriage had provided a solution of sorts to almost all women-blacks as well as whites-who became premaritally pregnant (Weeks, 1976). Of the nearly 600,000 births to women below the age of 20 in 1960, just 92,000-or less than one in sixoccurred to unmarriedwomen. And only about half of these women (48,000) were under the age of 18. So long as
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premarital pregnancy resulted in marriage, the issue of early childbearing was socially invisible (Vincent, 1961). In the mid-1960s, when I began my longitudinal study of young and mostly black mothers in Baltimore, it
Table 1. Selected U S. Birth Statistics, Numberof Births, in Thousands Total births Whites only Blacks only Total teen births Whites only Blacks only Total < 18-year-old births Whites only Blacks only Total non-married births Whites only Blacks only Total teen non-married births Whites only Blacks only Total non-married < 18-year-old births Whites only Blacks only aVital Statistics of the United States (Vol. and Welfare. Tables 1-A, 2-15, 1-v, 1-w. bVital Statistics of the United States (Vol. and Welfare. Tables 1-1, 1-32, 1-55. cVital Statistics of the United States (Vol. and Welfare. Tables 1-1, 1-32, 1-55. dVital Statistics of the United States (Vol. and Welfare. Tables 1-1, 1-32, 1-34, 1-76. eVital Statistics of the United States (Vol. and Welfare. Tables 1-1, 1-31, 1-34, 1-81.

was still customary for parents to pressure their daughters to marry in order "to give their children a name." Teenage childbearing was part of a common courtship sequence that was only mildly disapproved of so long as it eventuated in marriage (Furstenberg, 1976). The late 1960s and early 1970s put an abrupt end to this practice (see Figure 1). Sexual activity began to take place earlier, marriage occurred later, and premaritalpregnancy less often resulted in marriage. The interval between the median age at first intercourse and marriage widened from 1960 to 1975, most particularlyamong younger blacks (Moore, Simms, & Betsey, 1986; Zelnik, Kantner, & Ford, 1981). It was only then that teenage childbearing-that is, early and unmarried parenthood-became a more prominent and socially disturbing trend. The total number of births to unmarried teenagers more than doubled between 1960 and 1970 and continued its rise during the 1970s though at a somewhat slower pace (see Table 1). From 1960 to 1975, the birthrate for unmarried teenagers climbed by more than 50% while the total birthrate for all women in this age group declined by nearly a third. The product of these simultaneous changes was a steep rise in the ratio of non-marital to total from .15 in births among teens-up 1960 to .39 in 1975 (see Table 2). These changes did not occur at the

1960 to 1988 1960a 4,258 3,601 657 594 461 133 189 132 57 224 83 142 92 34 58 48 16 32 1970b 3,731 3,091 572 656 468 179 235 148 84 399 175 215 200 82 115 106 39 65 1975c 3,144 2,552 512 595 415 168 240 153 82 448 186 250 234 98 131 128 53 73 1980d 3,612 2,899 590 562 392 156 208 132 72 666 320 326 272 131 134 131 61 67 1988e 3,910 3,046 672 489 320 153 187 111 70 1,005 540 427 322 172 140 146 74 67

1). (1960). U.S. Department of Health, Education, 1). (1970). U.S. Department of Health, Education, 1). (1975). U.S. Department of Health, Education, 1). (1980). U.S. Department of Health, Education, 1). (1988). U.S. Department of Health, Education,

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Table 2. Selected Ratios, Computed From Data in Table 1 1960 Teen births/total births Whites only Blacks only Non-married teen births/total births Whites only Blacks only Non-married teen births/total non-married births Whites only Blacks only Non-married teen births/total teen births Whites only Blacks only Non-married < 18-year-old births/total births Whites only Blacks only .14 .13 .20 .02 .01 .09 .41 .41 .41 .15 .07 .44 .01 .00 .05 1970 .18 .15 .31 .05 .03 .20 .50 .47 .53 .30 .18 .64 .03 .01 .11 1975 .19 .16 .33 .07 .04 .26 .52 .53 .52 .39 .24 .78 .04 .02 .14 1980 .16 .14 .26 .08 .05 .23 .41 .41 .41 .48 .33 .86 .04 .02 .11 1988 .13 .11 .23 .08 .06 .21 .32 .32 .33 .66 .54 .92 .04 .02 .10

same rate for different racial or age groups. By and large, older white teens continued to wed following a premaritalconception while blacks, especially those under 18, did not (see also O'Connell & Rogers, 1984). In 1975, three quarters of all births to white teenagers were to married mothers compared to one quarter of the births to blacks. Among black teens under age 18, marriage resulting from premarital pregnancy all but disappeared. From 1960 to 1975, the proportion of all births born to unmarried teenagers rose from 2 to 7%. Among whites this fraction increased from less than 1% to 4%; among blacks, from 9 to 26%. By 1975, 4% of all births in the United States were to unmarried teens under age 18 (57% of whom were blacks). These changes were noticed in public health clinics, hospitals, family planning clinics, schools, and job training programs. Service providers did not invent the problem of premature parenthood; it was brought to them by teenagers. And, these new patterns of family formation at first seemed largely to be confined to younger blacks. Changing demographic patterns do not entirely explain the emergence of teenage childbearing as a social problem. Elsewhere I have argued that a confluence of factors contributed to the visibility of this issue- changing sexual patterns, liberalized abortion laws, increasing demands for prolonged school, among others (Furstenberg, 1976; Furstenberg & BrooksGunn, 1986). And, I concur with Vinovskis that family planners and reformers who were concerned about the declining position of the poor, especially poor blacks, used the issue of teenage childbearing to lay claim for
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greater resources. But did they misrepresent the facts to make it appear like teenage childbearing was growing when, in fact, it was not? I think not. The conjunction of trends described above legitimately propelled teenage childbearing into public visibility. Demographic data also help explain why the issue of teenage childbearing now appears differently than it did two decades ago. Since 1975, marked changes in the complexion and composition of young mothers have taken place. In 1975, upon completing Unplanned Parenthood, I predicted that the issue of teenage childbearing
Figure 2.

would fade from public concern in the 1980s because the size of the teenage population was shrinking. The overall number of teenage births did crest in the early 1970s (Figure 1) and the fraction of all births born to teenage mothers declined from 19% in 1975 to 13% in 1988-below the proportion in 1960 (Figure 2). So the baby bust cohort reduced the number of teen mothers, but the issue of teenage childbearing as a social problem did not go away. If anything, it troubled observers even more. The reason is fairly plain. Declining rates of marriage among pregnant teenagers fueled the perception that early parenthood was "The Problem That Hasn't Gone Away"-the title of the sequel to Eleven Million Teenagers, published by the Alan Guttmacher Institute in 1981. Even among older white teens, marriage ceased to operate as the escape route for unplanned pregnancy. Of course, other trends-concern about the growing incidence of sexual activity among whites in particular, high rates of abortion, and public reaction to welfare costs, to mention only a few-also helped to keep the issue prominent, but these patterns were linked as well to the postponement of marriage (Congressional Budget Office, 1990; Hayes, 1987). In the nearly decade and a half from 1975 to 1988, the last years for

Proportiorn of all birtlhs born to teens, United States, 1960 to 1988

.2

.15
0

.1 .05

1960

1970

1975 year

1980

1988

[fjjFAMILY RELATIONS

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which vital statistic data are available, white teenagers seemed to adhere to patterns more characteristic of blacks in the early 1960s. Non-marital childbearing rates more than doubled for white teenagers over the 13-year period. By 1988 more than half of all births to white teens occurred outside of marriage. In 1960, whites only produced 37% of all unmarried births to teenagers; in 1975, their share rose to 42%; by 1988, it was 53%. And contrary to popular impression, the rate of black non-marital fertility actually declined from 1975 to 1985 before beginning to rise again-perhaps because of more restrictive abortion laws (National Center for Health Statistics, 1990). Though blacks continue to experience disproportionate rates of nonmarital childbearing, the racial gap is narrowing in both the rate and ratio of fertility outside of marriage. In the 1960s, blacks accounted for almost two thirds of all births to unmarried women; by 1988 this figure had dropped to less than half (42%). And, black teenagers produced more than a quarter of all births out-of-wedlock in 1965 compared to 14% in 1988. By the end of the 1980s, teenage parenthood could no longer be considered an exclusively black issue. It is also important to recognize, as Kristin Luker (1990) observes, that rates of non-marital childbearing during this time have been rising for women in all age groups and among whites and blacks alike. Duringthe 1960s and early 1970s, out-of-wedlock birthrates fell sharply among all age groups except for teens. This trend suddenly reversed in the mid-1970s when nonmarital childbearing began to rise among all age groups. These changes in the rates of non-marital childbearing among older women occurred simultaneously, and perhaps not coincidentally, with a huge growth of this age segment as baby boomers entered their 20s and 30s. The production of teenage non-marital births has continued to grow but at a slightly slower rate than for older women. Women in their 20s and early 30s now account for most non-marital births. In 1975, half of all non-marital births occurred to teenagers; by 1988, this figure had dropped to less than a third (Figure 3). And an increasing number of older whites, too, are postponing marriage until after childbirth. These recent trends lead to the conclusion that the novel patterns of family formation, which at first seemed to be characteristic only of teenagers, are evidently part of a more general transformation in the American family.2 April 1991

This remarkable demographic shift suggests that we must rethink whether it is appropriate to single out teenagers, especially black teenagers, as a distinctive group for social attention. More and more, it appears that teenagers, blacks in particular, were behaving in the late 1960s and early 1970s, in ways that by now have become more common to older women and whites in general. The link between marriage and childbearing has become more tenuous for everyone. This observation leaves open the question of whether this variant pattern of family formation has harmful consequences for women and their children and, if so, whether unmarried teenage mothers and their offspring are more vulnerable to these consequences than unmarried older women.

Another Look at the Consequences of Teenage Childbearing

Few subjects have commanded as much scholarly attention in the past two decades as the consequences of early childbearing. In 1987, a Panel established by the National Research Council reviewed hundreds of studies on the economic, educational, social, and health effects of teenage pregnancy and parenthood, as part of its mission of assessing the magnitude of the
Figure 3.

problem (Hayes, 1987). The Panel's assessment is summarized in their final report, Risking the Future, where they write: Women who become parents as teenagers are at greater risk of social and economic disadvantage throughout their lives than those who delay childbearing until their twenties. They are less likely to complete their education, to be employed, to earn high wages, and to be happily married; and they are more likely to have larger families and to receive welfare. (p.1 38) The report goes on to say that the sharply drawn stereotype of teenage mothers in later life frequently disregards the diversity of outcomes attributed to early childbearing. "Although adolescent mothers overall do not do as well in later life as women who postpone parenthood, many manage to overcome the handicap of having a child in their early teens" (p.138). Nonetheless, Risking the Future generally portrays early childbearing as a negative event in the lives of young women and their children and a costly pattern to society at large. The revisionists have taken issue with this conclusion on two separate grounds. First, they contend that the adverse effects of teenage childbear-

Proportion of all non-married United States, 1960 to 1988

6

births born to teens

.4 0
0 0

0 1960 1970 1975 1980 1988

year

|1

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ing have been much exaggerated by the failure to introduce statistical controls that estimate selectivity bias. And second, they believe scholars have not considered the possible beneficial effects of early childbearing. I will address each of these issues in turn.

Does Teenage Childbearing Actually "Cause" Disadvantage ?

Teenage childbearing-like many other problematic behaviors-does not occur randomly (Furstenberg, 1990; Moore & Burt, 1982). Women who have children early in life are different from those who postpone childbearing even before they become teenage mothers. Comparisons of teenage and later childbearers sometimes fail to take account of these preexisting factors that lead some teenagers to become parents early and others to delay childbearing. Among the most potent of these are differences in social background, schooling, and family influences as well as personal differences in cognitive abilities and motivation (Furstenberg, Brooks-Gunn, & Chase-Lansdale, 1989; Hofferth & Hayes, 1987; Lancaster & Hamburg, 1986; Stiffman & Feldman, 1990). For example, teenage mothers are more likely than later childbearers to have grown up in extreme poverty, to have a background of family instability, and to have encountered academic and social problems in school. Given these credentials, the critics point out, little wonder that teen mothers have poorer educational and economic outcomes in later life than women who postpone parenthood. "Selective recruitment"involves a host of personal and contextual conditions related to a sequence of decisions beginning with early sexual activity and contraceptive risk taking and concludes with the resolution of an unplanned pregnancy (Miller & Moore, 1990). Thus, if those who have early sex, fail to contracept, or abort are different to begin with, these initial differences, and not the timing of first birth, could explain the so-called consequences of teenage parenthood. A number of investigations have attempted to correct for background differences. (See, e.g., Card & Wise, 1978; Duncan & Hoffman, 1990; Moore & Wertheimer, 1984.) Most of these studies indicate that preexisting differences explain part but not all of the "effect"of early parenthood. But statistical controls are a relatively crude way of eliminating selectivity. Geronimus and Korenman (1990) have employed an alternative approach to estimating
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selectivity by comparing siblings who had their first birth at different agesone in her teens and the other after age 20. While this contrast does not eliminate all potential sources of selectivity, it is a powerful way of eliminating the potential influence of neighborhood and familial conditions that differentiate early and later childbearers. Contrasting teen and later childbearing sister pairs in the National Longitudinal Survey of Young Women, Geronimus and Korenman find that a substantial portion of the initial effect attributed to early childbearing disappears. In the sample as a whole, income, receipt of public assistance, educational achievement, employment, and marital status were related to birth timing for women ages 28 to 38. But confining the analysis to the sister subsample, teen mothers were no less likely to have completed high school, teen mothers were more likely to be currently employed, and most of the income differential between teen and later childbearers disappeared. In some respects, then, teen mothers were hardly worse off than their sibs who had delayed childbearing. Yet other differences-in addition to the modest income differential-show up between early and later childbearing sisters. Later childbearers are more likely to be currently married and to have received education beyond high school.3 The Geronimus and Korenman findings should therefore not be interpreted as indicating that the effect of early childbearing is trivial or inconsequential.4 Moreover, their analysis is based on a very small number of cases that may not accurately represent well the population of teenage parents. Are sisters who diverge in the timing of first births typical of early and later childbearers? Further research using alternative techniques for estimating the effect of selectivity is critically needed. Women from disadvantaged backgrounds face long odds of doing well in later life whether or not they became pregnant early in life.5 Moreover, young mothers have quite varying responses to becoming parents. At present, we are just beginning to appreciate this diversity. To examine it systematically, we must consider both selective and mediating conditions that can independently and jointlX affect how teenagers manage motherhood. Geronimus (1990a) implies, for example, that teens who want to become pregnant will do much better in the long-run. The Baltimore data provided no support for this hypothesis. The teens who were less happy about beFAMILY RELATIONS

coming pregnant and having a child, if anything, did slightly better in the longrun. The conditions that predispose teens to become pregnant-school failure, despair of future opportunities, or a desire to solidify a relationship with a boyfriend-may not predict their capacity to respond successfully to the demands imposed by early parenthood.6

While some researchers have exaggerated the impact of early childbearing on the lives of young mothers, others have underestimated these effects by ignoring impacts on the offspring of teen parents, the men who father the children, or the kin who are called into service on their behalf. In recent years, the purview of research has widened to take account of these other significant actors (Brooks-Gunn & Furstenberg, 1986; Hofferth, 1987; Kinard, 1990; Ooms, 1981; Parke & Neville, 1987). This research has posed formidable problems in research design and analysis. Foremost among these is describing how family systems are altered when adolescents become pregnant. Relatively little is known about the ways in which young mothers collaborate with other parents inside and outside the household to raise their children. Based on the Baltimore study, I am inclined to believe that our initial assumptions of how well these cooperative arrangements function is naive and excessively optimistic.

The mere existence of a grandmother in the home has often been regarded as evidence that young mothers enter into a collaborative parenting arrangement, which necessarily benefits the child (Wilson, 1989). Observational research has produced mixed results on the success of intergenerational parenting arrangements. Some, perhaps most, work well (Chase-Lansdale, Paikoff, & BrooksGunn, 1990). But frequently these complex child care systems are unwieldy, conflict-ridden, and unstable (Burton & Bengtson, 1985; Furstenberg, 1981; Osofsky, 1990). Just as married couples have difficulty devising a cooperative division of labor, so, too, do adolescents and their parents. The scant evidence suggests that we should not too hastily embrace the assumption that three-generational family units invariably function as effective child care systems. Of course we also do not know whether the offspring of teenage childbearers enter more precarious family circumstances than children of later childbearers. Possibly, birth timing
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does not have great implications for whether or not children enter and remain in stable family situations. But, it seems likely that the children of younger mothers will endure greater family instability because their parents will undergo a greater number of household and marital transitions (Eggebeen, Crockett, & Hawkins, 1990; Mott, 1990). This proposition deserves greater empirical attention. One rarely estimated consequence of birth timing is the cost to the mother's family of origin of "doubling up." Relatively little work has been done on assessing the balance of benefits and burdens to extended kin. It is known that most teen mothers move away from their family of origin after a short duration, but we have little understanding of how this pattern of nest-leaving is related either to parenthood or birth timing (Furstenberg & Crawford, 1978; Hill, 1990). Nest-staying poses a different set of problems for households and related kin. Siblings, parents, and grandparents may all feel the financial and emotional impact of premature parenthood. Unanticipated family responsibilities can prevent adult caregivers from entering the labor force and siphon off scarce resources that might otherwise go to other household members, children in particular. Considerable controversy exists over the support and services that children of teenage parents derive from their fathers (Elster & Lamb, 1986; Parke & Neville, 1987; Robinson, 1988). Researchers and clinicians who study or serve this population are inclined to generalize on the basis of self-selected subgroups of fathers. Furthermore,short-term studies invariably overestimate the involvement of biological fathers because most fail to consider his performance beyond the early years of parenthood. Most partners of teenage mothers have highly unstable relations with their offspring (Furstenberg & Harris, in press; Mott, 1990). Many reside with them briefly or not at all. Fathers may assume an important role early in their children's life, but with the passage of time the strength of these bonds is frequently attenuated. Only a small minority of these children see their fathers regularly by the time they reach adolescence. Fewer still receive substantial financial support from them (Furstenberg & Harris, in press). Whether the timing of parenthood has different and enduring implications for the stability and quality of parenting children receive, their attachment to parent figures, or the economic support furnished to them remains to be seen. To
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the extent that the timing of first birth influences the likelihood of marriage and marital stability, one might anticipate that it would have importantimplications for the paternal involvement and support (see, e.g., Eggebeen et al., 1990). Teenage parents are less desirable marriage partners and probably attract less eligible mates. However, this source of selectivity is causally related to birth timing and cannot easily be estimated by statistical controls. To sum up, the revisionists have reminded us that some, perhaps even a large portion, of the presumed effects of early childbearing on young mothers may actually result from selective recruitment. But teenage childbearing has potentially broad ramifications for children, for the role of men in the family and for the extended family as well. Of course, some of these potential ramifications might actually be traced to selectivity as well. It may be more difficult to devise ways of estimating selection effects that are not causally independent from the process of early childbearing. This thorny problem represents a major methodologiical challenge for future research.

The Benefits of Teenage Parenthood: Why Some Teenagers Become Parents

One of the most hotly debated issues surrounding teenage childbearing is how often parenthood is intended. Or if not intended, how often is it welcomed by adolescents? Empiricalstudies of this question have produced mixed results. Survey research has generally provided consistent evidence that the births to teenagers are usually unplanned and mostly unwanted-at least at the time of conception (Forrest & Singh, 1990; Shah, Zelnik, & Kantner, 1975). On the other hand, some ethnographic and qualitative studies suggest that teenage parents and their families have more favorable responses to impending parenthood. Moreover, once the child is born, many parents and their kin express positive feelings about their children and about becoming parents or grandparents (Burton, 1990; Stack, 1974). Finally, many economists and some psychologists would point to the behavior of teenagers as strong evidence of an underlying taste or motivation for early childbearing. Given the knowledge and availability of birth control and abortion, youth who have babies must desire to become parents. After all, the means are available to prevent unwanted childbearing from happening.
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Those most skeptical about relying on survey results argue that only qualitative information reveals true sentiments about childbearing. Leon Dash, (1 989) a Washington Post journalist who conducted repeated interviews of a small number of teenage parents, reported that his subjects, who initially denied their desire to become pregnant, ultimately admitted that it was really intended. Child rearing, Dash concludes, provides a tangible economic and psychological asset for teens whose future prospects are bleak. When I first began to collect longitudinal data from young mothers, I was struck by the inconsistency and ambiguity of responses to questions about parenthood. Almost all of the young mothers in my study reported that they had been unhappy when the pregnancy was first discovered. Their mothers reported even more negative reactions to their daughter's impending birth. But most young women and their parents were mildly to enthusiastically positive by the time the children were borneven though many continued to say that they wished that they had not become pregnant so young. These data, collected in the mid1960s, could now be dated. However, among the next generation those who became teen parents were remarkably similar. Like their mothers, most of the teen mothers second-generation claimed that they had not intended to become pregnant but many were now glad to be parents (Furstenberg, Levine, & Brooks-Gunn, 1990). From both the survey and qualitative case studies conducted after the interview, we learned that childbearing sometimes provided direction and purpose to youth who were uncertain about their chances of rising out of poverty. Some also reported that having a baby had elevated their status within their families and among their friends. Yet, a number of these same women and many others who were less positive about becoming parents continued to regard their pregnancy as ill-timed, a mistake, and sometimes a tragedy for their parents who were reluctant or unable to assume the economic and social burdens of child care. What are we to conclude from these conflicting accounts? I believe are not that these inconsistencies methodological artifacts but real findings. Many years ago, I argued that motivation to becoming a parent is fluid and malleable. From the time that teens first initiate intercourse and run the risk of becoming pregnant until
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conception actually occurs, motivation to enter parenthood remains low. Rarely do teens deliberately choose or decide to become pregnant. Most attempt contraception but practice it irregularly. As a result, many drift into parenthood as an unintended result of having sex. Were they required to take some action-for example taking pills for a month, getting a series of injections from a physician, or using a diaphragm whenever they had intercourse-in order to become pregnant, I suspect that relatively few would.7 Indeed, nearly half of all pregnancies to women under age 20, not resulting in a miscarriage, are terminated by abortion (Henshaw & Van Vort, 1989). But what about the half that are brought to term? Do teens who elect not to abort decide to become parents? In a strict sense, the answer is yes. But studies on how teens resolve an unplanned pregnancy indicate that many regard parenthood as a default option (Rosen & Benson, 1982). That is, they let parenthood happen because they view their other choices as inferior or difficult. Some teens fail to recognize or refuse to acknowledge their pregnancy until late into their second trimester. Others find the option of abortion objectionable, believing that it is "wrong to make the baby pay for the mother's mistake"-a recurrent phrase in conversations with pregnant teens and their parents. And, there are teens who are talked into becoming parents by boyfriends who promise support or parents who ardently oppose abortion. But, teens, who might have wished not to become pregnant when they did, do not necessarily regard early parenthood as an unmitigated disaster for reasons that I have already mentioned. In neighborhoods and families where teenage parenthood is a familiar event, there is a cultural script for entering parenthood prematurely-even though it may not be the preferred way of starting a family. When a sample of Philadelphia teenagers were asked the best age to begin childbearing, almost all (89%) indicate that they would like to be 20 or older. Yet, 36% of white and 62% of black teens could imagine becoming parents in their teens (Furstenberg, 1989; see also, Moore et al., 1986). This discrepancy arises from the reality that childbearing is hard to prevent in American society. This statement invariably raises eyebrows among orthodox rationalists. In an era when contraception is widely available and abortion is still legal, many would
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say that it hardly seems credible that parenthood can be unplanned much less unwanted. But would the rationalists also contend that teenagers who contract STDs or AIDS are choosing to do so, given that knowledge about risks is high and informationabout prevention is widespread? In unpublished tabulations from a recent survey of Philadelphia teens, age at first intercourse was strongly related to whether contraception was practiced the first time. Contraceptive use in turn was associated with whether or not sex was planned. Predictably, younger teens were much more likely to say that sex was unplanned. Can we then conclude-as rational choice might lead us to predict-that the desire to become a parent is greatest among the youngest teens and decreases steadily with age? This proposition is patently absurd. To understand the discrepancy between sentiments and deeds requires seeing the world as many teenagers do. Pregnancy and childbearing along with STDs and AIDS are the inevitable risks of having sex. Individuals who understand quite well the link between sex and pregnancy may misjudge or distort their chances of becoming pregnant in contrast to the chances of everyone else. One of the most common responses to pregnancy that you hear from teens is: "Inever thought it would actually happen to me." Of course, they realized that they could get pregnant, but risk taking is rampant. It is not unlike the risks that many people run in failing to use seat belts. Certainly, young persons' reluctance to use seat belts is not taken as an expression of their desire to be injured in an accident. More than one reason is required to explain why teens fail to use birth control effectively. Contraceptive use is impeded by the unpredictable and sporadic nature of sexual activity. Moreover, in a substantial number of cases, intercourse is involuntary or coerced (Moore, Nord, & Peterson, 1989). Teens, especially younger teens, are also predisposed to believe that sexual encounters are events over which they have little control. They dislike contraception precisely because it transforms sex into the realm of rationality.Sex is an underground activity that resists and defies adult control. Furthermore, the sexual decisions of teens-such as we can speak of their behavior as the guided by rational choice-are product of two individuals who frequently do not share the same preferFAMILY RELATIONS

ences. A 15-year-old girl whose boyfriend persuades her to demonstrate her love to him by having intercourse may be acting more in accord with his (or her) immediate preference for sex than out of any interest in becoming pregnant. (Anderson, 1989). Finally, contraceptive attitudes and behaviors occur in a cultural context that generally holds birth control in low regard. Compared to our European counterparts, Americans-youth and adults alike-are notoriously poor at practicing contraception (Jones, Forrest, Henshaw, Silverman, & Torres, 1988). That teens derive some benefits from parenthood, then, does not mean that early childbearing is the result of rational choice. Parenthood is frequently the unanticipated and unwelcome outcome of having sex and not using birth control. True, many teens are able to salvage their lives after childbearing occurs, but most evidence leads to the conclusion that teenagers do measurably, if not dramatically better, when they delay parenthood. And, only a small minority of those who become parents in their teens regard the timing of their first birth as optimal.

Is Teenage Childbearing an Adaptive Strategy for Disadvantaged Families?

I have claimed that most teenagers do not set out to become parents when they do. However, reactions to impending parenthood do become more accepting and positive during pregnancy. Some researchers have postulated that the nature of these responses are shaped by whether and how much early childbearing will impair a teen's chances of achieving marriage, education, and economic security in later life. Among highly disadvantaged populations where the benefits of postponement are less obvious, negative reactions to early parenthood are likely to be more muted than in less disadvantaged groups where parenthood is viewed as a serious impediment to economic and marital success. Despite the plausibility of this hypothesis, I am unaware of a solid body of research demonstrating a link between perceived life chances and subsequent responses to childbearing.8

Even assuming that such a link exists, it does not necessarily follow, as Geronimus (1987) conjectures, that early childbearing is an adaptive response to extreme poverty and restricted life options that benefits young mothers or their offspring. Her claim that early parenthood is a "culturally
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rational" response to extreme disadvantage primarilyrests on two empirical findings.9 First, among blacks, neonatal mortality rates are lower for teen mothers than for mothers in their late 20s or older. Consequently, younger women can expect more favorable birthoutcomes. Second, young mothers are provided a high amount of family support during their teen years. Relatives, grandmothers in particular, assume some of the economic and social obligations of child care. Teen mothers, therefore, have special advantages not provided to women who postpone childbearing. Let's look at the evidence for each of these claims. Health statistics on infant death rates provide equivocal evidence that survival rates are higher for the children of teen mothers. While Geronimus (1987) reports that black teenage mothers have lower rates of neonatal mortalitythan do mature black women, at least one recent study contradicts her findings (Friede et al., 1987). In any event, the rates of mortality over the first year of life are higher among the offspring of teen mothers (Pittman, 1990). Vital statistics provide no general basis for recommending that disadvantaged women would produce healthier children if they initiated parenthood before age 20 than 5 or 10 years later. Furthermore, no existing evidence shows that disadvantaged women believe that early childbearing will produce healthier babies. Unpublished data from a recent survey in Philadelphia indicate that the vast majority of disadvantaged black teenagers believe that it is better for teenagers to wait until their 20s to begin childbearing. Do young mothers receive more care and support from their families than women who delay childbearing? Geronimus' conclusion relies heavily on an ethnographic study by Carol Stack (1974) of a single low-income community. Stack shows that parents rely heavily on kin and friends in child rearing when marital ties are weak and family bonds are strong. Stack's observations, moreover, are not restricted to teen parents. While her findings about the critical importance of social exchange among the poor are supported by numerous other studies, the benefits of mutual support systems for children are not necessarily as uniformly positive as Geronimus suggests. As I indicated earlier, children raised by multiple adult figures in complex families may fall between the cracks when the lines of authority are unclear and the responsibilities among parents amApril 1991

biguous. Moreover, the family circumstances of teen mothers and their children are quite unstable. Several longitudinalstudies that have looked at patterns of child care in the households of teen mothers reveal tremendous flux in children's lives during their early childhood. A relatively small proportion of teenage parents reside with their families beyond the transition to parenthood (Eggebeen et al., 1990; Furstenberg & Crawford, 1978; Hill, 1990). Parents who remain in the same household for lengthier intervals do not seem to profit from extended periods of coresidence, possibly because more able parents move out of their family's household as soon as they can. Whether their children profit from multigenerational child care arrangements has not been systematically examined. The advantages of living in an extended family for teen parents and their children are less clearly demonstrated than Geronimus seems to assume. What about family assistance provided to young mothers and their children living apart from their parents? Are teen mothers more likely to receive support than older childbearers? To my knowledge, the answer to this question is not known. But even if support were more abundant for younger childbearers, it is far from clear that an increase in family assistance would outweigh the educational benefits of deferring parenthood or the increased likelihood of entering into a stable
union.

teens than in their 20s. Based on data from the Baltimore study, the vast majority who become pregnant in their early teens regard the timing of childbearing as an unfortunate occurrence. Few parents desired their children to follow in their footsteps. At the 17-year follow-up, the youth were asked whether they knew how old their mother was when she became pregnant. Almost all did. Then they were asked if their mother had ever talked to them about their experiences of being a young mother. Nearly three out of five recalled having an explicit discussion on this topic. Most reported that their mother looked back with some regret about the timing of her first birth.

Implications for Policy

The final task of this article is to provide some direction for beleaguered policymakers, service providers, and funders who after spending many years and many dollars on the issue of teenage childbearing, now wonder whether the effort has been worthwhile. Have we been mislead into believing that the reduction of teenage pregnancy and childbearing is a productive strategy for improving the chances of disadvantaged youth? If early childbearing is in fact desired and its costs are minimal, then policies and programs aimed at postponing parenthood are surely misguided. Existing evidence provides a sound basis for rejecting this notion. Teenage childbearing has become and remains a troubling issue because relatively few parents, especially those under age 18, are adequately prepared to assume the economic, social, and psychological responsibilities of child care and child rearing. Early childbearing frequently disrupts their development and often reduces their prospects of fully realizing their educational potential. Nonetheless, researchers have often overstated the adverse effects of early childbearing by ignoring the fact that many teenage parents would fare poorly even if they were able to delay the birth of their first child. Also ignored sometimes are the findings that many young mothers display impressive resiliency in managing motherhood. The deterministic assumption that early parenthood inevitably shapes the course of later life has served research and public policy poorly. But rejecting this assumption does not imply that the effects of early childbearing are inconsequential on young parents, their families, or their children. The postponement of early childbearing may not be a certain tick135

That many teenage mothers and their families respond resourcefully to the challenge of managing motherhood is undeniable. Certainly my own research provides ample testimony for this conclusion. But it is a far leap from this observation to the assertion that early childbearing is an adaptive pattern that improves the circumstances of economically disadvantaged minorities. In order to make this argument, one must show that benefits of an earlier fertilityschedule accrue not only to young mothers and their offspring but also to the men who father the children and the families of the teenage parents. How would teen mothers themselves look upon the Geronimus thesis? Do they think that teenage childbearing contributes to their chances of success in later life? More importantly, do they think that it improves the prospects of their offspring? Already I have mentioned that few disadvantaged women say that they think it is better to have children in their

RELATIONS tfI FAMILY

et out of poverty, but it most certainly increases the odds of disadvantaged women escaping prolonged poverty by improvingtheir chances of educational attainment and entering more stable marriages. Early childbearing certainly imposes hardship on their families who are often ill-equipped to extend their limited resources to another family member. It may also prevent some of the indirect effects of premature parenthood on their children who are otherwise likely to pay the costs of being born into an unstable family situation. For the reasons discussed above, I have difficultyaccepting the idea that teenage parenthood is a culturally rational response to disadvantage. To argue that young mothers are rational actors consciously or unconsciously choosing parenthood to make the most out of their limited circumstances, ignores a huge body of evidence showing that most teenagers and their families define the experience of early childbearing as undesirable. That the perceived costs of early childbearing are not as high for them as for advantaged youngsters is probably true. But few adolescents indicate that they plan or choose to become parents in their teens. If teenagers do not want to become pregnant when they do, why are our efforts at prevention not more successful? Why do we continue to have the highest rates of teen pregnancy, parenthood, and abortion of any developed nation? In part, the answer lies in our inability to resolve conflicting cultural and political tendencies toward sexuality. We issue confused and confusing messages to young people about their responsibilities if and when they engage in sex. We preserve the fiction that teenagers will not engage in sex unless they are encouraged to do so. And, we continue to pretend that they are not having sex even when we know that they are. These deceits encourage adolescents to regard sex as an underground activity. Contraception remains a clandestine topic In schools, in the media, and within families. Figuratively speaking, we keep birth control in a plain brown wrapper. Recent efforts in many states to restrict abortion by making it economically and socially more difficult to obtain are likely to have the perverse effect of increasing unwanted childbearing. There is no evidence that teenagers have curtailed their sexual activity during the past decade when restrictive policies became more popular. However, it is entirely possible that
136

tighter abortion regulations have contributed to rising rates of non-marital childbearing. If contraception were easier to use and abortion easier to obtain, the incidence of early parenthood would surely drop. Just how much is anyone's guess. Yet even if our shortsighted policy toward birth control and abortion were suddenly altered, I doubt that the occurrence of teenage childbearing in this country would be reduced to insignificant numbers. Early childbearing owes its persistence to the fact that many women-not just disadvantaged black youth-have relatively little to lose by having a first birth in their teens or early 20s. Compared to the 1950s, the cultural stigma for non-marital childbearing has all but disappeared, along with the social costs that unmarried mothers typically endured-being forced out of school, placed in confinement, facing limited job prospects, and, most of all, being disadvantaged in the marriage market. Furthermore,the incentives for postponing parenthood are only substantial if young women really believe that they have a strong prospect of making it into the middle-class. This is just as true, if not more so, for the men who father their children. In an era when marriage has been less desirable, men have little or no reason to prevent a pregnancy from occurring. Possibly, this attitude may change if efforts to increase child support become more effective than they have been to date. Persistent inequality and growing social isolation among the poor, blacks especially, set the terms for calculating the costs of an ill-timed birth. As I have said, relatively few teenagers set out to become pregnant when they do. However, I have also noted that while the timing of parenthood is inopportune, having a child confers certain immediate benefits for women whose future prospects are bleak. If this is true for a substantial number of those who enter parenthood prematurely, it suggests that many will not take extraordinary measures to prevent pregnancy from occurring. Given the difficultyof using contraception and the moral dilemmas of abortion, many women will drift into parenthood before they are ready. For the most part, their families won't like it, but neither will they take extreme steps to prevent it from happening. This would also explain why even aggressive efforts to promote contraceptIon seem to have produced relatively modest effects in reducing
FAMILY RELATIONS

unwanted pregnancies. Without a strong belief that means of mobilityare available, teens in disadvantaged communities are likely to display indifferent efforts to prevent pregnancy from occurring. The prescription requires more than just a visit to a family planning clinic or handing out a pocket full of condoms. Without providing teenagers, females and males alike, a stronger reason to postpone parenthood, many will fail to use birth control even when it is freely available. I am not assuming, however, that any one couple makes these calculations when they have sex. It is probably more accurate to see these calculations as embedded in a social and cultural context that is familiar to the teens. In part, then, the task of policymakers involves not only widening opportunities for young adults in disadvantaged communities, but it requires a collective response on the part of local communities and the institutions which shape the views of children and youth: neighborhoods, schools, churches, volunteer organizations, and, of course, the family. Cultural redefinitions are likely to take root only when communities and local institutions are remoralized-when they come to see that there is more justice and opportunity for themselves and their children. The current pattern of disintegration of marriage and parenthood probably will not be reversed, if it can be reversed at all, without revising the reality of life at the bottom of American society.

ENDNOTES 1. I am both well and ill-suited to address these criticisms. On the positive side, my longstanding interest in the issue has afforded me an unusual vantage point for witnessing the social history of teenage childbearing. In the mid-1960s before the issue of teenage childbearing emerged as a social problem, I began a longitudinal study of young mothers and their families. Since then, I have been unable to escape involvement. My research has brought me together with advocates and policymakers and I have actively participated in scholarly and political debate over the past quarter of a century. Unwittingly, I have been a participant observer of sorts. But, I am also an interested party-a researcher who cannot be wholly indifferent to ideas formed or conclusions reached since the start of the debate. As will become evident, some of these ideas and conclusions closely correspond to the assertions of the revisionists; others sharply diverge from them. But in either case, I make no claim to being above the debate- for I have research findings at stake-or for being entirely neutral-for I have moral and political views that influence my judgments of the ideas that I will discuss and the evidence that I will assess. This disclosure comes more as a reminder than a revelation for I assume that this sort of bias is taken for granted by the reader. 2. Indeed, this trend-the disappearance of marriage as a precondition for parenthood-is evident in most Western nations (See Cherlin & Furstenberg, 1988; Davis, 1985; Popenoe, 1988). 3. Geronimus and Korenman's (1990) analysis can be criticized on several methodological grounds, any of which could result in an overestimate of the selectivity bias. Sample attrition might reduce the heterogeneity of the

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population;families with heterogenous sib pairs might be different from the populations of early and later childbearers;and, most important,the approach of using sister pairs only estimates the costs of early childbearing by comparingwomen who do and do not delay births. It does not model the effect of the losses that would occur to those women who delay births if they had elected to have a child early in life. Accordingly,it probablyyields an underestimateof the impact of early childbearingon outcomes in later life. Duncan and Hoffman(1990), using a differentdata set and different analytic procedures, found that early childbearingdoes produce higher rates of welfare dependency among teens compared to their sisters. But since both their study and the one by Geronimus and Korenman (1990) only controlled for family background, it is also possible that these studies underestimate the extent to which selectivity accounts for the adverse effects of early parenthood. 4. There is a danger to applying statistical procedures aimed at correcting for selectivity with too heavy a hand. In the first place, we can simulate conditionsthat in fact rarelyoccur in real life. If we could imagine that 15-year-olds who had babies had the same life circumstances at the time of birthas did 24-year-olds-came from the same types of families, lived in similar neighborhoods, and were personally endowed with the same level of abilities-then the net effect of birthtiming on later outcomes might be minimal. But, in fact, is this thought experiment a useful one? The timing of childbearing is part of a process that makes it nearly impossible to treat it as an isolated causal event. Inept and indifferent students may become teenage mothers as a way of dealing with unrewardingschool environments. But early parenthood confirms and crystallizes their academic failure. Althoughearly childbearingmay provide an alternativeto academic success, it also inhibits the possibility of subsequent school achievement. When the prior influence of low educational expectations and grade failure are controlledfor, we mightfind that the impact of early childbearing on subsequent academic success is reduced. This would not mean, however, that early childbearingis not an intrinsicpart of the causal process that produces lower educational attainment. 5. My colleagues and I were surprised at the relatively modest effects of early childbearingthat we derived by comparingthe young mothers in the Baltimorestudy to their counterpartsin several national surveys. We concluded that early childbearing per se only makes a moderate difference in the life chances of young black women. In part, this is because their chances are limited to begin with. Even if they manage to delay parenthood, they will not do as well as white women who become mothers as teenagers (Furstenberg, BrooksGunn, & Morgan,1987). But also, we discovered in the Baltimorestudy that many teen mothers found ways of successfully coping with early parenthood. In fact, most did not live up to the prevailing stereotype of the teenage mother in later life. 6. It is likely that the timing of the first birth has minimal effects on the segment of teen parents who are extremely poor before the birthof their first child (though it may well have adverse effects on their offspring).Also, early parenthood may have only modest effects on the most capable women, who possess the resources to respond to the added demands of child care. The burden of early parenthood might well be greatest for those capable of attainingeconomic self-sufficiency but lackingthe resiliency to respond effectively to additional stresses. 7. Norplant,the newly approved birthcontrol method that is surgically implanted into a women's arm, may proto vide an opportunity examine how teenagers respond to a contraceptive technique that does not require high motivationto use once in place. It remains to be seen whether this method will be affordable and acceptable to teenagers in the near future, but if widely adopted it could have a tremendous impact on the incidence of early childbearing. 8. Several studies address this issue indirectly. The results of an analysis of Testa, Astone, Krogh,and Neckerman (1989) examine marriagepatterns of young men in Chicago. The results showed some evidence that economic opportunities influenced the timing of marriage, but vast differences remained among racial and ethnic subgroups. The most direct support for this hypothesis is provided by Hogan and Kitagawa(1985). 9. The term 'culturallyrational" not clearly specified by is Geronimus(1990b). Does she mean that individualsredisspond to disadvantaged circumstances in culturally tinctive ways that advance their particularinterests or that cultural solutions develop that are functional for the survivalof groups that lead to distinctive normative codes? Who benefits from such culturally rational modes of behavior-families, adolescent parents, children-or disadvantaged blacks as a populationgroup?

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CALL FOR PAPERS

Papers are solicited for a special collection on "FamilyCommunication: Implications of Messages and Sequences for Child and Family Outcomes"to be published in Family Relations in July, 1992. The editors seek theoretical,methodological, and empiricalpapers which highlight the role of messages and/or sequences of messages in family processes. Of interest are articlessuch as: a summary of descriptive, empirical work focusing on patternsof interactionthat discriminate distressed from nondistressed couples; an empirical study which relates marital conflict patterns to outcomes for children;or a theoreticalpiece anchored in what we know about sibling communication. We are particularlyinterested in interactional researchin the family but each author needs to emphasize the practicaland/or pragmaticimplications of the work. Using the APA style sheet, manuscriptsshould not exceed 30 double-spaced pages, inclusive of title and abstractpages as well as tables and references. Manuscriptsmust be postmarkedby October 1, 1991. Feel free to contact either editor with questions. Send four copies of the manuscript to: Mary Anne Fitzpatrick,Center for CommunicationResearch,Vilas 6035, or University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706 (608-262-2277 or BITNET), Anita Vangelisti, Departmentof Speech MAFITZ@WISCMACC. of Texas, Austin, TX 78712 (512-471-5251). Communication,University

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