Poverty Risk for Families of Chilean Teenage Mothers Determined by Woman's Education, Father's Support

Abstract

A six-year retrospective study of mostly low-income teenage mothers in Santiago Chile assessed causes of the transmission of family poverty associated with adolescent motherhood by analyzing data from interviews conducted in 1988 with 325 women drawn from a random sample of 500 poor teenage mothers who gave birth between 1981 and 1985 and attended the Program for Reproductive Health in Adolescence at the University of Chiles teaching hospital in Santiago. According to the 1988 data only half of the biological fathers of the babies born provided steady economic support; one-third of the mothers said that the father had never met his child. In 1991 the researchers reinterviewed 91% (295) of these mothers. By early 1991 their children were 5-9 years old and the majority of the women were aged 23-25. Most women had had their first child when they were 16-18; at the time of the birth 78% (230) were not married to the biological father. During the childs first year of life 64% of the biological fathers always or sometimes contributed to the childs economic support; 36% never did. 6 years later 39% of the fathers had not contributed during the preceding year and 50% either had not contributed at all or only sporadically. By 199142% of the biological fathers had abandoned the children and their mothers. Poverty among the families of adolescent mothers was strongly influenced by the mothers level of education her earning ability and the support she received from the childs father. Multivariate regression analysis showed that abandoned mothers were 2.5 times more likely than other women to be employed and each additional year of education was associated with a 5% increase in earnings. The father was 17 times more likely to contribute financially if he was married to the mother and was 5 times more likely to contribute if he was employed. 6 years after the birth of the first child 52% of the mothers were either single or separated and most were living in extended-family households.