The available data are emphatic on this point. In this country, states with relatively generous benefits do not have higher teenage birth rates than states with relatively stingy benefits. So long as teen-agers are sexually active, the most effective way to reduce the chance that they will produce children is to assure that they have access to contraception before the fact and abortion after the fact. Those who object to either measure on whatever grounds can only hope that a way can be found to reduce sexual activity itself. That, clearly, is a tall order-all the more so because Americans on average are becoming sexually mature at an ever younger age and are getting married at an ever later age.
Real incentives do work, however.
People are far more likely to postpone childbearing when they have good reasons for doing so. For example, those who have realistic expectations of going to college or otherwise sharing in the national wealth somehow manage the trick -check the prevailing birth rates of college students and young professionals if you have any doubts on that score. Bu were we to say to poor young women the they too would share the good things of life if only they put off bearing children for a year or two, we would be participating in an immense cruelty. And the same is true of families. The poor understand these things even when others do not.