HOMELESS TEEN MOTHERS

Relationship between Social Problem on Homeless Teen Mothers in American Society and the Impact on the Development of Social Welfare Policy in America



Relationship between Social Problem on Homeless Teen Mothers in American Society and the Impact on the Development of Social Welfare Policy in America

Introduction

In some countries, giving birth at a young age carries a social stigma: for instance, the fact that U.S. vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's daughter Bristol had a child at age 18 received much negative publicity. Most news stories about teenage mothers concentrate on negative characteristics such as birth complications, poverty, and juvenile delinquency. Since the 1980s, research has shown that teenage mothers distance themselves from some of the negative assumptions associated with young parenthood (Maggio, 2010). Research also provides evidence of prejudice between young mothers themselves, with some young mothers distancing themselves from other young mothers. However, when a teenage girl from poor or middle family becomes pregnant she is often rejected by the family because of their present financial status and the predicted financial burden which the child of teenage mother will bring to them. They are often forced to find an alternate home, which is the root cause of the problem of homeless teenage mothers or HMT in United States.

Discussion and Analysis

Roughly 500,000 teens give birth every year. Of those teen mothers, about one-fifth or twenty percent are repeat or second births to teen mothers. In an ethnographical study of homeless women, Rivera-Torres, et al (2003) admitted that the large number of people who attended high school finally dropped-out because of being pregnant and could not return due to family problems or a lack of childcare. In reaction to an increase in teenage pregnancy rates among the homeless population, the Institute for Children and Poverty (2003) surveyed 337 homeless women residing in New York City and described the following profile of homeless teen mothers:

53 % were the product of adolescent childbearing

37% did not know where to get birth control

50% had a previous abortion

64% had children with multiple fathers

41% did not know they were pregnant until second trimester

31% had never been employed

42% did not know how to use birth control

Rates and Trends of Teen Pregnancy in the World

In developing countries, teenage pregnancy and motherhood is often within marriage and does not incur a social stigma; over 50 percent of total births in sub-Saharan Africa are to teenage mothers (Prediger & Walsh, 2008). However, the experience of pregnant teenagers who have children out of wedlock in countries such as Zimbabwe and Uganda are treated as shameful. Complications of pregnancy and childbirth are the leading cause of mortality among women between the ages of 15-19 in such areas. The highest rate of teenage pregnancy in the world is in sub-Saharan Africa, where women tend to marry at an early age (Maggio, 2010). However, a recent report by Save the Children noted that of the 13 million children born annually worldwide to women under 20 years of age, more than 90 percent are born ...