On Teenage Childbearing and Neonatal Mortality in the United States
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5118712 |
|---|---|
| Authors | A T Geronimus (0000-0001-6918-5777, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1987 |
| Volume | 13 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 245 |
| Publication date | 1987-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Population and Development Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0098-7921 • E-ISSN: 1728-4457 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/1973193 |
| OpenAlex | W2031983744 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 105 |
| References cited | 41 |
In the United States, further reducing the incidence of infant mortality remains a highly desirable goal. Particularly acute is the need to reduce black infant mortality, which is approximately twice the rate for whites. 1 Because one feature of black American fertility patterns is a high rate of teenage childbearing, some have suggested that early fertility plays an important role in high rates of black infant mortality. Correspondingly, one policy view is that efforts to prevent teenage childbearing will also reduce infant mortality. The logic underpinning this policy approach is based on a common interpretation of the observed association between teenage childbearing and excessive infant mortality, namely, that early fertility is inherently detrimental to child survival. This article reconsiders that assumption and posits an alternative viewpoint: that teenage childbearing in a highly developed industrial country such as the United States is a social response to disadvantage, and that the excessive infant mortality associated with it is a consequence of the same disadvantage rather than of early fertility per se. Teenage motherhood in the United States occurs almost exclusively among socioeconomically disadvantaged populations, in which women at any age may be exposed to environmental factors that elevate infant mortality (Geronimus, 1986a). If environmentally induced risk factors are the primary explanation of the association between early fertility and excess infant mortality, then policy initiatives focusing directly on altering the childbearing behavior of teenagers will not reduce infant mortality. Furthermore, if environmental influences are more important than inherent biological factors, then fundamental questions arise regarding the possibility of extrapolating from US experience to countries, particularly less developed ones, with different population parameters and environmental considerations
Environmental health · Infant mortality · Neonatal mortality · Obstetrics · Population · Sociology · Demographic Trends and Gender Preferences · Demography · Family Dynamics and Relationships · Global Maternal and Child Health · Medicine
Racial Differences in the Relationship Between Infant Mortality and Socioeconomic Status
Racial differences in the relationship between infant mortality and socioeconomic status
Frequent Residential Relocations Cumulatively Accelerate Menarcheal Timing in a Sample of English Adolescent Girls
Racial and ethnic variation in low birthweight in the United States
Age at First Birth and Birth Outcomes
Infant mortality and mothers' religious involvement in Brazil
Does Young Maternal Age Adversely Affect Child Development? Evidence from Cousin Comparisons in the United States
Demography, Feminism, and the Science-Policy Nexus
Does Family Planning Reduce Infant Mortality
Does Family Planning Reduce Infant Mortality? An Exchange
Teenage Pregnancy and Child Health in the Urban Sahel
Explaining Black Southern Migrants' Advantage in Family Stability
Teen Out-of-Wedlock Births and Welfare Receipt
Assessing the Importance of Family Structure in Understanding Birth Outcomes
Adoption and Black Teenagers
Adolescent Birth Intentions, Social Disadvantage, and Behavioral Outcomes
Adolescent Women's Contraceptive Decision Making
Neighborhood Social Context and Racial Differences in Women's Heart Disease Mortality
The Timing of a First Birth and High School Completion
Race Differences in Sexual Activity Among Adolescent Women
Life Course Heterogeneity in the Transition from Adolescence to Adulthood Among Adolescent Mothers
The weathering hypothesis as an explanation for racial disparities in health
The association of maternal age with infant mortality, child anthropometric failure, diarrhoea and anaemia for first births
Individualisierung und Elternschaft. Eine empirische Überprüfung der Individualisierungsthese am Beispiel USA und ein Systematisierungsvorschlag
Comment on Pampel and Pillai’s “patterns and determinants of infant mortality in developed nations, 1950–1975”
The increase of single parent families
One Size Does Not Fit All
Estimating the educational consequences of teenage childbearing
Climate stress and adolescent fertility
Three challenges for behavioural science and policy
Neighborhoods and Racial Inequality in Assortative Mating and Fertility in the United States
Unplanned but not unwanted? Teen pregnancy and parenthood among young people with refugee backgrounds
Perceived environmental risk as a predictor of teenage motherhood in a British population
Demographic research on infant mortality
The Role of Stress, Social Support, and Family Environment in Adolescent Mothers' Parenting
Young maternal age and low birth weight risk
Demographic variables in fetal and child mortality
Health inequality and population variation in fertility-timing
Maternal employment and teenage childbearing
Three Generations of Navajo Women
Challenging Discourses of Teenage Pregnancy
Poverty among African Americans in the Urban United States
Bridging the Gap
Preventing Pregnancy or Supporting Students? Learning From the Stories of Young Mothers
The Interactive Effects of Race and Ethnicity and Mother's Residence on the Adequacy of Prenatal Care
An Overview of Adolescent Pregnancy in Rural Areas
Kin Support and Family Stress
Life history theory and evolutionary anthropology
Origins of Post-1960 Black Family Structure
Teen motherhood in cross-cultural perspective
The Impact of Family Structure and Social Change on Adolescent Sexual Behavior
Race/Ethnicity, Apgar and Infant Mortality
The effect of legalization and public funding of abortion on neonatal mortality
High-Risk Childbearing
Life-course patterns of new working-class youth in Russia
Structure and stability of maternal support among pregnant and parenting adolescents
Age patterns of smoking in US black and white women of childbearing age
The increasing racial disparity in infant mortality
Black-White Differences in Pregnancy Desire During the Transition to Adulthood
Infant Mortality by Cause of Death
Black/White Differences in Women’s Reproductive-Related Health Status
The socioeconomic costs of teenage childbearing
Racial and Ethnic Differences in Birthweight
Why are teenagers in the United States less likely to breast-feed than older women
Trajectories of fetal loss in the czech republic
A Theory of the Value of Children
Neighborhood Context and the Transition to Sexual Activity among Young Black Women
Unwanted Pregnancy and Abortion
Early sexual maturity among Pumé foragers of Venezuela
Infant mortality and intra‐household competition in the Northern Islands of Orkney, Scotland, 1855–2001
A feminist and evolutionary biologist looks at women
Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Infant Mortality Among U.S. Latinos
Parental Investment Prospects and Teen Birth Rates of Blacks and Whites in American Metropolitan Areas
Association between maternal age at menarche and newborn size
Labor and Delivery Complications among Teenage Mothers
Hispanic subgroup differences in prenatal care
Fundamental Dimensions of Environmental Risk
Methodological challenges in the study of fetal growth
Early stress predicts age at menarche and first birth, adult attachment, and expected lifespan
What teen mothers know
Low birth weight, intrauterine growth-retarded, and pre-term infants
Attachment and time preference
A Life History Approach to Understanding Youth Time Preference
The role of future unpredictability in human risk-taking
Les maternités précoces aux États-Unis
How Sexism in Institutions and Everyday Interactions Shapes Early Childbearing
Damned if you do
The contribution of research to racial health equity? Blame and responsibility in navigating the status quo of anti-black systemic racism
Infant mortality
Health implications of early childbearing on pregnancy outcome in Botswana
Getting a piece of the pie? The economic boom of the 1990s and declining teen birth rates in the United States
Regional Origin and Family Stability in Northern Cities
Support for new mothers and fertility in the United Kingdom
An evaluation of demographers' use of ethnographies
Kinship capital
Clashes of Common Sense
Gender, Race, Class, and the Trend Toward Early Motherhood
An Intersectional Look at the 'Rush to Adulthood
Race Differences in Linking Family Formation Transitions to Women's Mortality
Race-Ethnicity, Poverty, Urban Stressors, and Telomere Length in a Detroit Community-based Sample
Unplanned parenthood
Determinants of fertility in developing countries
Adolescent Mothers in Later Life
Sexual Activity, Contraceptive Use and Pregnancy Among Metropolitan-Area Teenagers
The Children of Teenage Parents
Psychosocial Assets, Life Crisis and the Prognosis of Pregnancy12
Tomorrow's tomorrow
All our kin
The risk of low birthweight
Spontaneous abortions in an industrialized community in Finland
Effects of birth rank, maternal age, birth interval, and sibship size on infant and child mortality
The effects of race, residence, and prenatal care on the relationship of maternal age to neonatal mortality
Causes of fetal and neonatal mortality by race in a selected U.S. population
The relationship between age of mother and child health and development
Population and the invisible hand
A hazards-Model analysis of the covariates of infant and child mortality in Sri Lanka
Patterns and determinants of infant mortality in developed nations, 1950–1975
Trends in Total and Marital Fertility for Black Americans, 1886–1899
The Potential Impact of Changes in Fertility on Infant, Child and Maternal Mortality
Estimating a Household Production Function
Transition from virginity to nonvirginity among youth
Assessing adolescent interpersonal negotiation strategies
Co-variates of child mortality in the Philippines, Indonesia, and Pakistan
Birth Control and the Fertility of the U.S. Black Population, 1880 To 1980
Marital Timing in Women's Life Patterns
Social Change and Transitions to Adulthood in Historical Perspective
Toward a reformulation of the neonatal mortality rate
The Nation's Families
Infant and Child Mortality
The impact of public health services on mortality
American Fertility Patterns
Demographic Determinants of Infant and Early Child Mortality
How biological and behavioural influences on mortality in Malaysia vary during the first year of life
Risking the Future
An Analytical Framework for the Study of Child Survival in Developing Countries
A Comparison of Black and White Adolescents' Beliefs about Having Children
The Value of Children in the United States
Unwed Mothers and Their Sex Partners
Negro-White Differences in Decisions regarding Illegitimate Children
Adolescence in Historical Perspective
Age Norms, Age Constraints, and Adult Socialization
| Unique citing works | 105 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2,76 |
| Citation span | 1988 - 2026 (39) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | Yes |
| Citation types | Neutral: 85 |