In the United States, unmarried parents gave birth to approximately 1,293,000 children in 1998. Thirty-three percent of all births in the United States were to unmarried women 2 . Although the overall teen birth rate has been decreasing from 1991 to 1998, the birth rate for unmarried teens and all other age groups is increasing. The percentage of couples who choose marriage when pregnancy occurs is declining. A premarital birth more than doubles the risk of divorce among Caucasian women when other factors are held constant 6 .
Teenage marriages end in divorce at twice the rate of non-teenage marriages.
Marriages in the early twenties have a higher breakup rate than those in the late twenties. The effect of age at marriage on the rate of divorce becomes negligible after the twenties. Quickly made marriages have high probability of divorce 7 . Single mothers experience elevated rates of depression, low self-esteem, poor health and general unhappiness 8 . A teen who becomes a single mother before she has graduated from high school is less likely to graduate from high school and less likely to go to college.