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Title: Declining Earnings of Young Men: Their Relation to Poverty, Teen Pregnancy, and Family Formation
Resulting in 1 citation.
1. Children's Defense Fund
Declining Earnings of Young Men: Their Relation to Poverty, Teen Pregnancy, and Family Formation
Report, Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Clearinghouse, Children's Defense Fund, May 1987.
Also: http://diglib.lib.utk.edu/cdf/data/0116_000050_000282/0116_000050_000282.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Children's Defense Fund
Keyword(s): Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB); Childbearing; Current Population Survey (CPS) / CPS-Fertility Supplement; Earnings; High School Completion/Graduates; High School Dropouts; Marriage; Poverty; Schooling

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

This report examines how the lack of adequate job opportunities at decent wages makes it difficult for many young people, particularly young men with limited skills or educational credentials, to get a good start in the changed labor market of the 1980s. Using data from the CPS and NLSY, the report focuses primarily on the earnings and marriage rates of young men and traces the sharp declines in employment and earnings, falling marriage rates, and increasing poverty among young families and their children. Some of its key findings include: (1) between 1973 and 1984, the average real annual earnings among males ages 20 through 24 fell by nearly 30 percent, from $11,572 to $8,072 in 1984 dollars; (2) the percentage of young men able to support their family with income above the poverty line dropped from 60% in 1973 to 42% in 1984; (3) young men without high school diplomas suffered the largest percentage drop in their real annual earnings during this period; (4) among high school dropouts, those with strong basic academic skills earned twice as much as dropouts with a weaker educational foundation; and (5) youths ages 18 to 23 who have the weakest reading and math skills are eight times more likely to have children out-of-wedlock. The concluding section of the report discusses a set of strategies designed to bolster the self-sufficiency of young families.
Bibliography Citation
Children's Defense Fund. "Declining Earnings of Young Men: Their Relation to Poverty, Teen Pregnancy, and Family Formation." Report, Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Clearinghouse, Children's Defense Fund, May 1987.