Hogan, D.P. & Kitagawa, E.M. (1985). The Impact of Social Status, Family Structure and Neighborhood on the Fertility of Black Adolescents

. American Journal of Sociology, 90, 825-855.

OVERVIEW

(Download Impact of Social Status overview as a PDF)

• Marriage among young ghetto blacks is delayed because it is economically uncertain.
• Many young black women achieve adulthood through premarital parenthood.
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• Female heads of ghetto homes with daughters among their children create strong role models for girls which parental and adult counsel can hardly overrule.

BACKGROUND

Black teenagers living in metropolitan areas of the United States initiate sexual intercourse at earlier ages than other teenagers, and have higher rates of premarital pregnancy, with deleterious effects:

• High divorce rate.
• Higher rates of fertility and shorter intervals between births.
• Higher infant mortality rates.
• Less education and lower incomes and occupational status than similar women who delay child rearing.
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• Welfare dependency is increased and reduced family income.

DESIGN

A random selection of 1,078 females, ages thirteen to nineteen, took the 1979 Young Chicagoans Survey conducted by the Research Division of the Chicago Urban League. Extensive data about the demographic, social, economic, and fertility characteristics of these teenage respondents were gathered through personal interviews conducted by female interviewers.

FINDINGS

A relatively large percentage (16.9%) of black teenagers from all types of socioeconomic and family backgrounds becomes pregnant before reaching the age of twenty. However, this percentage varies greatly according to various family factors, socioeconomic status, and neighborhood characteristics in the black community.

Among black females, the rate of pregnancy for middle class teenagers is 53% higher than that of upper class teenagers; lower class teenage girls have a higher rate of pregnancy (95%). Also, black girls whose parents were not married when the girls reached their eleventh birthday demonstrate a teenage pregnancy rate 36% higher than that of girls from intact families.

Girls with five or more siblings have a pregnancy rate 55% higher than that of those from smaller families. Girls from families in which one or more sisters have already become teenage mothers have rates of pregnancy 38% higher than that of girls growing up in families where teenage pregnancy has not occurred.

Dean Borgman cCYS