ABSTRACT
The international context highlights important facts about US teen childbearing. In the United States the over whelming majority of births to women age 19 and younger occurs outside marriage. In this respect the United States is similar to a number of other Western industrialized countries. In 1981, 50 percent of all births to women age 19 and younger in the United States occurred outside marriage. The educational demands of the US labor market have increased dramatically, and the employment and earnings prospects of high school dropouts and others at the lower end of the educational spectrum have worsened. Teens from high-income families are more likely to abort an unplanned pregnancy than are teens from low-income or poor families. According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, 70 percent of unplanned pregnancies to women from high-income families end in abortion, compared with 39 percent for women from poor families.
