Family Histories and Teen Pregnancy in the United States and Canada

• Published date: 01 October 2018
• Author: Robert Crosnoe,Lisa Strohschein,Chelsea Smith
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12512
• Date: 01 October 2018

C S University of Texas at Austin

L S University of Alberta∗

R C University of Texas at Austin∗∗

Family Histories and Teen Pregnancy in the United

States and Canada

Objective: This study took a long view of child-

hood experiences that can contribute to the

risk of teen pregnancy in the United States and

Canada, two countries with different norms and

policies surrounding family life and inequality.

Background: Teenage pregnancy is a major

life experience arising from life course trajec-

tories unfolding during a young woman’s child-

hood. Cross-national comparisons can elucidate

family-based pathways while embedding youth

within broader national contexts of the United

States and Canada, which are similar in some

respects yet different in others.

Method: Longitudinal data from the U.S.

National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979

Young Adult Survey (n=3,122) and the Cana-

dian National Longitudinal Survey of Children

and Youth (n=2,517) connected childhood

histories to teenage pregnancy. Competing risk

models estimated the risk of teenage pregnancy

with family structure changes and episodes in

poverty during childhood.

University of Texasat Austin, Population Research Center,

305 E 23rd Street, Stop G1800, Austin, TX 78712

(chelsea.c.smith@utexas.edu).

∗University of Alberta, Sociology,5-21 Tory Building,

Edmonton, AB, CAN T6J 2H4.

∗∗University of Texas at Austin, Population Research

Center, 305 E 23rd Street, Stop G1800, Austin, TX 78712.

Key Words: adolescent pregnancy, cross-national, family

structure, panel studies, poverty.

Results: Teenage pregnancy, family change,

and poverty were more common in the United

States. In the United States, only multiple

experiences of instability and poverty were

associated with greater risk of teenage preg-

nancy, but, in Canada, any experience of

childhood disadvantage was associated with

elevated risk.

Conclusion: The risk of teen pregnancy was

higher among both U.S. and Canadian adoles-

cents from moreunstable and economically inse-

cure families and that link between cumulative

experiences of childhood disadvantage and ado-

lescent pregnancy was stronger in Canada.

Implications: Policies and interventions to

reduce teen pregnancy must address childhood

socioeconomic disadvantage.

Teen pregnancy is a discrete event precipitated

by proximate circumstances—an adolescent girl

gets pregnant at a specic time as a result of

current sexual activity. Yet, similar to all life

course transitions, this event is embedded within

much longer behavioral and experiential trajec-

tories that arise out of particular social con-

texts (Mollborn, 2017). As such, understand-

ing teen pregnancy is facilitated by approaches

that are both dynamic and contextualized, espe-

cially when dynamic means a long view extend-

ing back to birth and contextualization connects

the ecological settings of everyday life (e.g.,

families) to broader societal settings that shape

1244 Journal of Marriage and Family 80 (October 2018): 1244–1258

DOI:10.1111/jomf.12512