Amanda van Scoyoc

I think this article on teenage pregnancy and young motherhood is fascinating. So many beliefs about teen pregnancy are not backed by research. How often have you heard this claim?

Teenage motherhood may actually make economic sense for poorer young women, some research suggests. For instance, long-term studies by Duke economist V. Joseph Hotz and colleagues, published in 2005, found that by age 35, former teen moms had earned more in income, paid more in taxes, were substantially less likely to live in poverty and collected less in public assistance than similarly poor women who waited until their 20s to have babies. Women who became mothers in their teens — freed from child-raising duties by their late 20s and early 30s to pursue employment while poorer women who waited to become moms were still stuck at home watching their young children — wound up paying more in taxes than they had collected in welfare.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-males13-2008jul13,0,4392044.story