Findings from Chile, Barbados, Guatemala, and Mexico are reviewed in this article to shed light on the consequences of adolescent childbearing for mothers' economic and social opportunities and the well-being of their first-born children. The studies include retrospective information and a comparison group of adult childbearers to account for the effects of background factors (poverty) and the timing of observations. The findings show that early childbearing is associated with negative economic rather than social effects, occurring for poor rather than for all mothers. Among the poor, adolescent childbearing is associated with lower monthly earnings for mothers and lower child nutritional status. Also, among this group of women only, improvements in the child's well-being are associated with mother's education and her contribution to household income. These findings suggest that social policy that expands the educational and income-earning opportunities of poor women could help to contain the intergenerational poverty associated with early childbearing among the poor.
PIP: The consequences of adolescent childbearing for women's social and economic opportunities and the well-being of their first-born child were investigated in studies conducted in Barbados (n = 303), Chile (n = 505), Guatemala (n = 2850), and Mexico (n = 462). The studies included retrospective information and a comparison group of adult childbearers. There was no evidence that early childbearing has negative consequences on the marriage options of young women. Adolescent childbearing was associated with higher fertility, a greater tendency to be a boarder, father absence and lack of financial support, and more grandparents taking over responsibility for child care. Adolescent motherhood was further associated with poor earning opportunities for the teenage mother and poverty. The first-born child's height-for-age was below the norm only when the mother was poor. Overall, these findings suggest that social policies aimed at significantly expanding the educational and income-earning opportunities of young mothers and providing them with access to high-quality reproductive health services could contribute to breaking the cycle of poverty associated with early childbearing.