Rebecca A. Maynard, Ph.D. University of Pennsylvania December 1, 2009

 Brief overview of the Kids Having Kids project  Review of the methodology  Summary of findings

 Rationale High and rising rates of teenage pregnancy Increasing proportions of pregnant teens keeping and raising babies Most babies reared by single mothers Most babies reared in poverty  Goal Document the consequences of kids having kids Estimate the costs of teenage childbearing

 Single parent households Welfare dependence Poverty  Low school completion rates  Child abuse and neglect  Poor child outcomes

 University of Chicago’s Harris School  Nationally prominent scholars  Research and policy advisors  Cost analysis overlay  First edition 1997  Second edition 2007

Call to Action: Births per 1000 Pre 1992 guttmacher.org/pubs/2006/09/12/USTPstats.p

Birth Before Age 18Birth Age Total 140,761281,282422,023 First Birth 126,471210,312336,783 Higher Order 14,29070,97085,240

 Consequences for Teenage Mothers  Consequences for Fathers of Children Born to Teenage Mothers  Consequences for Children Social and psychological Abuse and neglect Criminal activity Adult earnings  Consequences for Taxpayers and Society  Evidence of Effective Prevention Strategies

 Perspectives Teenage mothers Taxpayers Society (distribution neutral)  Assigning value/cost to some consequences E.g., incarceration spells; administrative costs of welfare; foster care; education of children  Aggregating over families Accounting for compositional effects and cohort size  Steady-state accounting  5% annual discount

 Productivity Mother Father Children  Child Support  Public Assistance Cash/near cash  Criminal justice  Out-of-pocket health care costs

 Tax revenues Mother Father Children  Public Assistance Cash/near cash Medical  Foster care  Special education  Criminal justice

 Productivity Mother Father Children  Public service administration Cash/near cash Medical  Foster care  Special education  Criminal justice

 Sexual activity risk: studies/ 40 estimates  Similar results across four types of programs

 Pregnancy risk: studies/ 34 estimates  Small impacts  Significant only for multi-component youth development programs 3 studies/6 estimates

 Pregnancy  : studies/ 25 estimates  Small average impacts  Impacts distributed across various program models

 There are real costs of teenage childbearing Borne by taxpayers and society, not the teens  Solutions are not obvious Health and sex ed seems necessary, but not sufficient Social norms seem to play an important role  Consider testing more differentiated interventions