This summary presents the main findings from the three evaluations and discusses lessons that may be useful for the designers of future state and local programs. Despite recent declines in sexual activity, abortion, and birth rates for U.S. teenagers, the number of births remains high. Nearly one million teenagers become pregnant every year. Three-fourths of those who gave birth were not married, and nearly 200,000 were under age 18. Many of these young mothers face multiple challenges as they enter adulthood and strive for self-sufficiency, and their children grow up with significantly higher risks of poor health, education, and economic outcomes.
Teenage parents are at especially high risk of long-term welfare dependence.
Nearly half of all teenage mothers go on welfare within five years after becoming a parent. Most went on and off welfare more than once, spending an average of 8 to 10 years on the rolls over their lifetimes. Even though teenage parents made up only a small proportion of welfare recipients at any given time, nearly half of all welfare recipients were single women who had given birth as teenagers. Research shows that the children of teenage parents are more likely to be in poor health, experience less stimulating and supportive home environments, be abused or neglected, have difficulty in school, become teenage parents themselves, and be incarcerated during young adulthood, when compared with children of older parents. They also must live with a parent or guardian or in an adult-supervised setting, unless the state determines that an exception is appropriate.