What Teen Mothers Know

In the United States, low-income or minority populations tend toward earlier births than the more advantaged. In disadvantaged populations, one factor that may exert pressure toward early births is "weathering" or pervasive health uncertainty. Are subjective perceptions of health related to fertility-timing? Drawing on a small sample of intensive interviews with teenage mothers-to-be, I suggest that low-income African American teenagers may expect uncertain health and short lifespans. Where family economies and caretaking systems are kin network-based, such perceptions may influence the decision to become a young mother. Heuristic typologies of ways socially situated knowledge may contribute to the reproduction of fertility timing practices contrast the experiences of poor African American interviewees, working class white interviewees, and middle class teens who typically postpone childbearing.

Dataset(s): Alabama Vital Statistics: U.S., 1989-1991. New York City Vital Statistics, 1989-1991. Census: U.S., 1990.