Unplanned parenthood: The social consequences of teenage childbearing.

by Furstenberg, Frank F.

New York, NY: Free Press. 1976, xviii, 293 pp.  

 

Social, economic, and psychological consequences of adolescent parenthood are examined using data from a 6-yr longitudinal study of predominantly Black, low income teenage mothers, the fathers of their children, their mothers, their children 5 yrs after birth, and a control group of classmates who did not become pregnant in adolescence. Findings are discussed in terms of a career model which depicts a birth out-of-wedlock in adolescence as an outcome of a particular sequence of events in a distinctive moral career. Emphasis is placed on the essentially unplanned disruptive nature of adolescent parenthood and the coping strategies that follow the event.