[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > question, of course, is whether women whose children are "illegitimate" are > more likely to go on welfare than are women whose children were conceived > "legitimately". Are they? Anybody have cites? No question about it. Just compare characteristics of the AFDC caseload to the general population. More incisive descriptive analysis can be found in recent work at the Urban Institute by LaDonna Pavetti. At their web site you can download her testimony "Time on Welfare and Welfare Dependency," which has the most recent data on spells of which I'm aware. > Another issue concerns teen pregnancy. Unmarried teens are having > children at about the same rate (relative to their numbers) today as they > did 40 years ago. If we consider that unmarried teens are most likely to > have children due to (1) ignorance of birth control methods; (2) lack > of alternative occupations; (3) coercion by older partner, then we have > to ask whether these conditions are less prevalent in 1996 than they were > 40 years ago. I expect they're more prevalent. (1) and (3) don't seem very likely, though I'm going by recollection of literature read some time ago. The women are not well-educated but not dumb either. They know where babies come from. (3) is dubious because the basic framing difficulty is that the men/boys are not stable enough presences in the women's lives to coerce child-bearing. I have a modicum of personal experience here because my wife and I went through the process of adoption. African-American babies are not put up for adoption as often as one might think -- though they are certainly available -- because the families take them in. White babies are scarce, relative to demand, as most people know. The easiest transaction, so to speak, is mixed-race babies which neither "community" wants. Your #(2) is most salient, going to the basic reason -- having a baby at this point in time -- with or without welfare -- is more inviting than other occupations or pastimes. I have yet to ever hear anybody say in the public debate that for all the problems of having children out of wedlock, and all the problems experienced by the children themselves, at bottom the decision to go to term is life-affirming. The "pro-life" voice would seem to be rele- vant in this vein, but you don't hear it. I speculate that this points up the unfortunate way that the Catholic social teaching, clearly not without its problems, is not prominent in the left-of-center landscape. M.S. ==================================================== Max B. Sawicky 202-775-8810 (voice) Economic Policy Institute 202-775-0819 (fax) 1660 L Street, NW [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 Washington, DC 20036
