Did You Know?

“Half Of 20-To 29-Year Old Women Who Gave Birth In Their Teens Have A High School Diploma.”

Young adults from 20 to 29 years of age who gave birth in their teenage years are less likely to hold a high school diploma or GED, relative to their counterparts who did not have a teen birth. Overall, 53 percent of young women who gave birth as teens received a high school diploma, compared with 90 percent of those who did not. However, women who had a teen birth were much more likely to have a GED (17 percent) than women who did not (4 percent).

Breaking this number down by race and ethnicity, African American teen mothers are most likely to have a high school degree (62 percent), followed by whites (53 percent) and Hispanics (47 percent). White females 20- to 29-year-olds that were once teen mothers, however, are more likely to have received a GED (24 percent) than their black and Hispanic counterparts (11 and 8 percent, respectively). In comparison, Hispanic women who had a teen birth were more likely to receive no educational credential: 45 percent received neither a diploma nor a GED, compared with 27 percent of African Americans and 22 percent of whites.

Educators are critical partners in reducing teen pregnancy rates and connecting pregnant and parenting youth to the services they need to continue their education. School-based prevention efforts should include a combination of strategies to improve student engagement, including instruction on healthy relationships and sex education. It is also critical to help young mothers stay in school. This means identifying child care options, providing emotional support as girls navigate both motherhood and their relationships with the fathers of their children, and connecting young mothers with financial resources.

Jennifer Manlove, co-director of the teen pregnancy / reproductive health research area at Child Trends, is a sociologist with more than 20 years of post-doctoral experience researching adolescent and young adult sexual and reproductive health decision-making, pregnancy, and fertility. A key component of her research focuses on the role of intimate relationships and partners in sexual activity, contraceptive use, and unintended pregnancy.

Hannah Lantos, Ph.D., is a Research Scientist in the Youth Development research area at Child Trends. She recently graduated with her Ph.D. in Public Health with a focus on social and behavioral trends in adolescent health from Johns Hopkins University.