Abstract
The most significant individual costs of teenage childbearing are associated with truncated educations and lost human capital investment. Among the most significant direct public costs are the expenditures of just three government programs: AFDC, Food Stamps, and Medicaid. An important public cost of teenage childbearing overlooked by many researchers is the cost to U.S. productivity of large numbers of undereducated and impoverished mothers in the work force, and the intergenerational transfer of this impoverishment to their children. Any restrictions on abortion will likely increase unwanted teenage fertility, and its associated costs, particularly among the disadvantaged.
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Caldas, S.J. The private and societal economic costs of teenage childbearing: The state of the research. Popul Environ 14, 389–399 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01270917
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01270917