Furstenberg F F, Brooks-Gunn J, Morgan S P
University of Pennsylvania.
Fam Plann Perspect. 1987 Jul-Aug;19(4):142-51.
The popular belief that early childbearing almost certainly leads to school dropout, subsequent unwanted births and economic dependence is greatly oversimplified, if not seriously distorted: A longitudinal study of over 300 primarily urban black women who gave birth as adolescents in the middle to late 1960s shows that a substantial majority completed high school, found regular employment and, even if they had at some point been on welfare, eventually managed to escape dependence on public assistance. Relatively few ended up with large families; most had fewer births than they had wanted or expected at the time they first became pregnant. The study also found that the pathways to success were surprisingly diverse. Although young women who gave birth at an early age were disadvantaged when compared with their peers who bore children later, huge variability existed. Teenage childbearing lowered the women's likelihood of economic success and increased their likelihood of having a large family. However, the women who had more economically secure and better-educated parents were more likely to succeed--perhaps as a result of receiving a greater amount of direct aid and having other family resources available. In addition, differences in educational motivation and performance were especially important factors. Young mothers who had been doing well in school and who had had high educational aspirations at the time of their first birth were much more likely than others to be successful later. Additional births at young ages also constrained the mothers' ability to attend school and accrue job experience. Women who had more children in the five years after their first birth did less well in school, had lower aspirations and came from more disadvantaged families than did women who curtailed their fertility. However, even when such factors were controlled for, subsequent fertility lowered the chances of economic success in later life. Changes in the mothers' life courses affected some aspect of their children's behavior at all ages, but there was no simple or recurring pattern of influence. For example, a mother's welfare receipt was associated with behavior problems in her child during the preschool years, but not later on. In contrast, the mother's marital status was not related to behavior problems during the preschool period but was clearly related to such problems during the child's adolescence.
一种普遍的观念认为，早育几乎肯定会导致辍学、意外生育和经济依赖，这种观念即便没有被严重扭曲，也被极大地简化了：一项针对300多名主要为城市黑人女性的纵向研究表明，这些女性在20世纪60年代中后期还是青少年时就生育了。研究显示，绝大多数人完成了高中学业，找到了固定工作，即使她们曾在某个阶段领取过福利救济，最终也设法摆脱了对公共援助的依赖。相对较少的人最终拥有大家庭；大多数人的生育数量比她们首次怀孕时想要或预期的要少。该研究还发现，成功的途径出人意料地多种多样。尽管与晚育的同龄人相比，早育的年轻女性处于劣势，但存在很大的差异。青少年生育降低了女性经济成功的可能性，增加了她们拥有大家庭的可能性。然而，父母经济上更有保障且受教育程度更高的女性更有可能成功——这可能是因为她们得到了更多的直接帮助并有其他家庭资源可用。此外，教育动机和成绩的差异是特别重要的因素。首次生育时在学校表现良好且有高教育抱负的年轻母亲比其他人日后成功的可能性要大得多。年轻时再次生育也限制了母亲上学和积累工作经验的能力。在首次生育后的五年里生育更多孩子的女性，与减少生育的女性相比，在学校表现更差，抱负更低，家庭劣势更大。然而，即使考虑到这些因素，后续生育也降低了日后经济成功的机会。母亲生活历程的变化在各个年龄段都影响着孩子行为的某些方面，但没有简单或重复的影响模式。例如，母亲领取福利救济与孩子在学龄前的行为问题有关，但在之后则不然。相比之下，母亲的婚姻状况在孩子学龄前与行为问题无关，但在孩子青春期显然与之相关。
