Fathers of Children Born To Young Urban Mothers.

Summary

Fathers of babies born to a sample of urban mothers younger than 18 at delivery ranged in age from 14-50 and were, on average, 2-4 years older than the mothers. Among the adolescent women who had given birth to their first child, 28 percent of the partners of black women and 45 percent of the partners of white women were 20 years of age or older. The educational attainment of the fathers was very low, particularly among older whites. At approximately 15 months after the child's birth, 36 percent of the fathers were neither in school nor working.

Three-quarters of the pregnancies among the young white mothers and 95 percent of those among the black mothers were unplanned, but only six percent of the white mothers and 16 percent of the black mothers were using a contraceptive at the time of conception. Only 16 percent of the fathers were living with or married to the mother of their child at 15 months after birth. About 90 percent of the fathers had spent time with their child during that period, but frequency of contact declined markedly with time. Overall, 20 percent of the fathers had children by other women.

Introduction

The role played by the male in the problem of adolescent pregnancy in the United States has received increasing attention in recent years. Many of the studies of young fathers have shown that they, like teenage mothers, tend to be from among the poorer and less educated groups in society, and that they may face serious and long-term social and economic disadvantages, when compared with young men who postpone parenting until a later age. (1)

The existing data on adolescent fathers suffer from serious shortcomings, however. Adolescent fathers are difficult to reach in any systematic way, because a great deal of demographic information about them is missing, especially in some parts of the country, and because an unknown but considerable proportion of men deny paternity. (2) To complicate matters, some studies include only teenage fathers, while others cover fathers in their early 20s. (3)

Even when studies include men in their early 20s, the picture provided by most is inadequate precisely because of the age limit. Teenage fathers, unlike teenage mothers, actually represent a very small population group. National birth statistics show that in 1986, only three percent of all fathers were teenagers when their first child was born. (4) Because the fathers of babies born to women under the age of 20 are usually older than the mothers, a broader perspective on the male contribution to teenage pregnancy can be obtained by looking at all men who father children born to adolescent women, regardless of their age at the time of the child's birth. However, there are no national data available on the number or the characteristics of such men.