Newswise — Kelly Musick is a professor of policy analysis and management at Cornell University, and is a member of the Population Association of America and Cornell’s Population Program. She comments on figures released Tuesday, April 10, 2012, from the National Center for Health Statistics finding that teen birth rates are at historic lows.
Musick says: “The context of teen childbearing has changed dramatically over the last several decades. In the past, women typically married and started their families at a younger age, so teen childbearing was fairly normative. Concerns over teen childbearing arose as the numbers of unmarried teen mothers increased, alongside a general trend toward delayed family formation.
“In the last two decades, there’s been another shift in the context of teen childbearing – toward cohabitation. Today, the vast majority of teen mothers are unmarried, but many of these mothers are living with their child’s father.
“Teen mothers tend to be quite disadvantaged socioeconomically before getting pregnant. Bigger investments in opportunities for these young women outside of family formation might be what it takes to push rates of teen and unintended childbearing down further.”
National Center for Health Statistics data:http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/teenbrth.htm
RSS