This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in Web of Science Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Web of Science (7) Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Plotnick, R. D. Articles by Ku, I. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Better Child Support Enforcement

Can It Reduce Teenage Premarital Childbearing?

University of Washington

Irwin Garfinkel

Columbia University

Sara S. McLanahan

Princeton University

Inhoe Ku

Seoul National University

Stricter child support enforcement may reduce unwed childbearing by raising the costs of fatherhood. The authors investigate this hypothesis using a sample of young women from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, to which they add information on state child support enforcement. Models of the probability of a teenage premarital birth and of teenage premarital pregnancy and pregnancy resolution provide tentative evidence that during the early 1980s, teens living in states with higher rates of paternity establishment were less likely to become unwed mothers. This relationship is stronger for non-Hispanic Whites than for non-Hispanic Blacks. The findings suggest that policies that shift more costs of premarital child-bearing to men may reduce this behavior, at least among non-Hispanic Whites.

Key Words: child support • paternity • premarital childbearing • teenage childbearing

Journal of Family Issues, Vol. 25, No. 5, 634-657 (2004)
DOI: 10.1177/0192513X03258311


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?