Reexamining the Association of Maternal Age and Marital Status at First Birth With Youth Educational Attainment

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12360
• Author: Fenaba R. Addo,Sharon Sassler,Kristi Williams
• Date: 01 October 2016
• Published date: 01 October 2016

F R. A University of Wisconsin–Madison

S S Cornell University∗

K W The Ohio State University∗∗

Reexamining the Association of Maternal Age and

Marital Status at First Birth With Youth Educational

Attainment

We reexamined the association of maternal age

and marital status at birth with youth high school

completion using data from the Children and

Young Adult sample of the 1979 National Lon-

gitudinal Survey of Youth and giving attention

to multiple age categories and race and eth-

nic variations. Youth born to older teen mothers

were no morelikely to graduate from high school

than those born to the youngest teen mothers.

Although delaying childbirth to young adult-

hood was associated with greater odds of chil-

dren’s high school completion when compared

with the earliest teen births, those born to young

adult mothers were disadvantaged when com-

pared with those born to mothers aged 25 years

or older. Being born to an unmarried mother

was associated with lower odds of high school

completion. We found no evidencethat maternal

age at birth more strongly predicted high school

Department of Consumer Science, University of

Wisconsin–Madison, 4204 Nancy Nicholas Hall, Madison,

WI 53703 (faddo@wisc.edu).

∗Department of Policy Analysis and Management, Cornell

University,297 Martha Van Rensselaer Hall, Ithaca, NY

14853.

∗∗Department of Sociology, The Ohio State University,238

TownshendHall, Columbus, OH 43210.

Key Words: adolescent childbearing, family structure, mar-

riage, race/ethnicity,secondary education.

graduation for White compared with Latino and

Black youth.

An extensive body of literature has documented

the disadvantages faced by children born to

teen parents (Cooksey, 1997; Haveman, Wolfe,

& Peterson, 1997; Hayes, 1987). Although the

largest increases in the average age of rst

birth occurred between 1970 and 1990, dur-

ing the late 1980s there was a brief but steep

increase in teen birth rates (Mathews & Hamil-

ton, 2009). Since 1991, birth rates for teens

have fallen for all racial and ethnic groups.

American women increasingly defer childbear-

ing into their 20s (Ventura, 2009). The fram-

ing of teen childbearing as a social problem

has dominated research on parenting (Bonell,

2004; Furstenberg, 2007). Less attention has

focused on whether delaying childbearing from

adolescence into young adulthood is benecial.

Yet some research has documented that chil-

dren born to women in their early 20s also suf-

fer some of the negative outcomes associated

with being born to teen mothers, such as com-

pleting less schooling and having higher levels

of idleness (Francesconi, 2008; Levine, Pollack,

& Comfort, 2001). Given the increasing impor-

tance of human capital investments acquired in

late adolescence and early adulthood, it is time

1252 Journal of Marriage and Family 78 (October 2016): 1252–1268

DOI:10.1111/jomf.12360

Maternal Age at Birth and Youth Education 1253

to reassess the association between maternal age

at birth and child outcomes.

Another important factor when considering

the ramications of fertility delay is the interde-

pendence of age and marital status at rst birth.

In the early 1970s, when half of all women were

married by age 21 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2006),

nonmarital births accounted for only 10.7% of

all births (Ventura & Bachrach, 2000). Still,

half of all nonmarital births were to women in

their teens (Ventura, 2009), and a large pro-

portion of teen marital births were the result of

postconception marriages (Bachu, 1999). In the

intervening decades, nonmarital childbearing

increased dramatically (Lichter, Sassler, &

Turner, 2014; Ventura, 2009). Research doc-

umenting the disadvantages associated with

being born to unmarried parents is vast; such

youth demonstrate poorer outcomes in adoles-

cence and young adulthood, including lower

levels of educational engagement and attain-

ment (Amato, 2005; Brown, 2006; Ermisch &

Francesconi, 2001; Sassler, Williams, Addo,

Frech, & Cooksey, 2013). Since the 1970s,

the majority of Black children have been born

to unmarried mothers; among White women,

nonmarital childbearing was less prevalent but

has been rising (Furstenberg, Brooks-Gunn, &

Morgan, 1987; Ventura & Bachrach, 2000). Yet

few recent studies have assessed whether the

association between being born to an unmarried

woman and educational outcomes are similar

across groups.

The conuence of the decline in teen child-

bearing and the rise in nonmarital childbearing

suggests the need to reassess the association

between maternal age at birth, union status,

and youth outcomes. Educational attainment

is a particularly important achieved attribute.

Young adults who fail to complete high school

are particularly disadvantaged in the labor mar-

ket (Rouse, 2007). Disparities in educational

attainment contribute to the diverging destinies

experienced by youth from more and less advan-

taged backgrounds. Blacks, for example, have

experienced higher returns to education on aver-

age than Whites (Henderson, Polachek, & Wang,

2011), despite their lower average levels of

school attainment, highlighting the need to better

understand the factors associated with obtaining

a high school diploma. In this article, we have

three main objectives. First, we assess whether

having a mother that delayed fertility beyond her

teen years and into her early 20s is associated

with being more likely to complete high school.

Second, we examine whether the disadvantage

associated with younger maternal age at child-

birth can be accounted for by marital status.

Third, we explore whether associations between

maternal age at birth, marital status, and high

school graduation differ by race and ethnicity.

Data are from the linked Children and Young

Adult sample of the 1979 National Longitudinal

Survey of Youth.

E C  Y

E A

Teenage childbearing has long been viewed as

a social problem (Bonell, 2004; Furstenberg,

2007). Concern is often expressed over the

cognitive, emotional, and social development

of children born to very young mothers and the

intergenerational consequences of early parent-

ing (Furstenberg et al., 1987; Hayes, 1987). We

draw on the theory of household production

(Becker, 1991; Foster, 2002), which consid-

ers the linkage between maternal inputs and

child outcomes. This framework emphasizes

the trade-offs between the value of time spent

in human capital investment and nonmarket

time. Early childbearing may reduce a mother’s

investment in her own human capital because

of premature curtailment of schooling or by

limiting employment opportunities. Early and

more recent work nds that teen childbear-

ing is strongly and negatively associated with

mother’s educational attainment (Fletcher &

Wolfe, 2009; Klepinger, Lundberg, & Plotnick,

1999). Women who give birth as teens are

less likely to complete high school than those

who defer childbearing beyond adolescence

(Martin, 2000); that also limits opportunities

for employment in high-quality jobs that pro-

vide control over employment circumstances

(Johnson, Kalil, & Dunifon, 2012).

There is, however, no consensus on what

constitutes “early” childbearing. Childbearing in

late adolescence and the early 20s may also

curtail investments in human capital, as young

people are increasingly encouraged to pursue

postsecondary education. Furthermore, employ-

ment opportunities for young adults with only

a high school degree or in their early 20s are

limited, and unemployment rates are higher than

among those with a high school degree or more

(Rouse, 2007). This raises the possibility that

offspring may be disadvantaged even when their