Social Policy

WHEN CHILDREN HAVE CHILDREN

The offspring of teen-age mothers face an uphill battle, according to a study in this month's issue of the journal Pediatrics. They are more likely to drop out of high school, live in poverty and become teen mothers themselves.

The study was based on statistics of teen-age mothers in inner-city Baltimore in the early 1960s. It looked at 1,758 inner-city children whose mothers were between 12 and 42 years old.

  • Daughters of teen mothers were 3.6 times more likely to be on welfare than those with mothers older than 25.

  • Some 40 percent of daughters and 18 percent of sons born to teen mothers became young parents themselves.

  • This compares to just 22 percent of daughters and 6 percent of sons born to mothers over 25.

  • Nearly three-quarters of the children born to mothers 25 years old and older graduated from high school -- compared with 62 percent of those whose mothers were younger than 20.

Researchers suggested that the cause of the differences was the greater maturity and financial security of the older group.

Source: AP, "Children of Teen Mothers Likelier to Be Poor," Washington Times, November 4, 1997.


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