Teen Pregnancy In The United States

Education serves as the gateway for social mobility from class to class. Generally, with higher education levels come corresponding higher income levels. The correlation between the two makes higher education an appealing endeavor for many Americans, especially those in young adulthood, faced with the increasing social norm of going to college. For many young adults, especially for young women, teen pregnancy stands in the way of or postpones reaching the higher education levels needed for earning a higher income. Only a few teen mothers continue to pursue a college degree and as a result, those without a college degree earn significantly less than their counterparts that had children after the age of twenty. Though teen pregnancy has seen
Often, teen fathers will drop out of school in order to work and provide for their new family (Cisneroz). Cisneroz also found that because teen parents were faced with the cost of raising a child, they were more likely to drop out and seek employment without even so much as a high school diploma. In fact, Stroble supported this by reporting that only about 50% of teen mothers will have a high school diploma by the age of 22, in comparison to the 90% of women who had children after adolescence and had a diploma by 22 years old. Furthermore, of those 50% of teen mothers who had earned a high school diploma, only 2% continued on with their education and managed to earn themselves a college degree by the age of 30 (Stroble). Researchers: Tyler, John H., and Magnus, Lofstrom from Johns Hopkins University Press reported that women that dropped out of high school were more likely to be marginalized in their field and often worked low-income jobs. Cisneroz noted in her thesis that teen mothers dropping out of high school and teen fathers entering the workforce with no education are significantly increasing the likelihood of living in poverty and supporting an impoverished family. Stroble's findings added to this by reporting that the demographics of student drop outs are made up of "disproportionally Black, Latina and socioeconomically disadvantaged young women." Cisneroz indicated that
Without the completion of secondary education it is not likely that the mother will find a high paying job in order to provide for her children's needs. In comparison to children coming from educated families, "children of unmarried high school dropout teen mothers are 10 times more likely to live in poverty" (Stroble). Children headed by uneducated unmarried women are more at risk of being incarcerated as well. The sons of teen drop outs are almost three times more likely to be incarcerated than their peers (Stroble). Not only that, but these children are more likely to have health problems due to financial instability (e.g. lack of proper healthcare, no insurance, conflicts with work schedules). The children will receive half of the necessary care and treatment