Contact Name
Barbara Dietsch
562-799-5126
bdietsc@WestEd.org

Teens who are pregnant or parenting are likely to fall within "The Forgotten Half" of American youth–a term referring to the roughly ten million young people age 18-24 (now actually about 40 percent of young people) who neither complete high school nor continue their formal education beyond high school graduation. Social and economic indicators for young people making up The Forgotten Half of the late 1990’s are worse in many ways than they were in the late 1980’s when the seminal reports of the William T. Grant Foundation Commission on Work, Family and Citizenship–The Forgotten Half: Non-College Youth in America and The Forgotten Half: Pathways to Success for American Youth and Young Families–were published. The Forgotten Half Revisited: American Youth and Young Families 1988-2008, (Halperin, 1998) by the American Youth Policy Forum (AYPF) provides a timely update on the forgotten youth of today and the next millennium.

Although there are some positive trends in educational aspirations and attainment and signs of success for many college-educated young people and two-parent young families, teen parents are unlikely to be part of these trends. The social and economic outlook for teen parent members of The Forgotten Half is bleak given the statistics on the group as a whole. Earnings are the lowest in 25 years. For example, median family income for female-headed households with children was slightly lower in 1993 than in 1975! Between 1993 and 1996, it increased by 12 percent, but at $16,389 was still only 32 percent of the median income of married-couple families with children. For married-couple families with children, on the other hand, median income has risen steadily, from almost $44,000 in 1975, to $47,000 in 1985, to almost $52,000 in 1996. (Halperin, 1998).

Poverty rates are higher overall, except among college graduates. Particularly hard-hit are the children of single, teen parents. According to Carol Emig, "While the trend has slowed, it is still deeply troubling that a third of American children live with just one parent, generally a mother. Across a broad range of indicators, starting with poverty, children living with just one parent fare worse than children living with two married parents. Almost half (49 percent) of the children living in female-headed families in 1996 were poor, compared to ten percent of children in married-couple families." (Halperin, 1998)

Births to unmarried teenage mothers are increasing over time. Among teenage mothers 15-17, those who are unmarried tripled from 23 percent in 1950 to 84 percent in 1996. Older unmarried teen births (ages 18-19) increased eightfold, from nine percent in 1950 to 71 percent in 1996. The teen birth rate (per 1,000 females ages 15-17) rose from 31 to 36 between 1985 and 1995. (Kids Count data in Halperin, 1998)

Significant effective interventions are needed to stave off the increase in teen pregnancy and consequent social and economic difficulties of youth who became parents as teenagers. Two additional publications of the American Youth Policy Forum, Some Things DO Make a Difference for Youth: A Compendium of Evaluations of Effective Youth Programs and Practices, 1997 and MORE Things That DO Make a Difference for Youth, 1999, provide insights into effective strategies for reducing teen pregnancy and delaying sexual intercourse among teens. These publications summarize youth program evaluations showing positive outcomes for youth in the areas of academic achievement, employment, earnings, reductions in risky behavior and reductions in teen pregnancy.

Among these youth programs, participants in the Teen Outreach Program (TOP) had a 41 percent lower rate of teen pregnancy than the comparison group. This teen pregnancy prevention program includes a service-learning component, designed to increase skills and self-esteem and classroom discussions connecting the service experience to classroom learning and specialized curricula. Program implementers believe that problem behaviors among adolescents have common roots and require a comprehensive approach. As material on sexuality comprises less than 15 percent of the written curriculum and may not be used at all, "One of the more striking features of the Teen Outreach Program is that it does not explicitly focus upon the problem behaviors it seeks to prevent" (Allen, et. Al., 1997).

American Conservation and Service Corps (Abt Associates, 1996, Some Things) showed a lower rate of pregnancy for African American female corpmembers (6 percent) than for their counterparts in the control group (21 percent). The youth corps organized out-of-school youth, 18 to 25 years old, into crews under the direction of adult staff to carry out community service projects. Participants also received job training, job search, basic and remedial education and life skills services.

Students in the Quantum Opportunities Program (QOP) (Brandeis, 1994 and 1995, STDMAD) became teen parents less often than control group members (24 vs. 38 percent). QOP, operated by community-based organizations, provides small groups of disadvantaged high-school age youth with five years of mentoring, educational activities, and life and family skills instruction.

Girls, Inc.© (Girls, Inc., 1991, MTTDMAD) implements a comprehensive set of age-appropriate programs for girls and young women nine to 18 years old resulting in younger participants delaying sexual intercourse up to a year longer than young non-participants and increased use of birth control and fewer pregnancies among older participants than among older non-participants. The programs include workshops for girls and their parents, goal-setting, assertiveness training, and providing factual information and skill-building exercises.

The evaluation summaries in the two AYPF Compendia of effective programs indicate the program practices to which evaluators attributed program success. Analysis of these factors resulted in a list of nine basic principles of effective youth programming all of which could be helpful strategies in teen pregnancy prevention programs:

From the program examples above, service-learning (TOP and service corps), long-term services and supports (QOP) and parent/guardian participation (Girls, Inc.) seem to be effective, yet perhaps less-known, strategies associated with solid reductions in teen pregnancy. As the TOP staff determined, problem behaviors among adolescents likely have common roots calling for comprehensive strategies such as these in addition to the more narrow and more often encountered "life skills instruction" strategies.