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Title: Family Histories and Teen Pregnancy in the United States and Canada
Resulting in 1 citation.
1. Smith, Chelsea
Strohschein, Lisa
Crosnoe, Robert
Family Histories and Teen Pregnancy in the United States and Canada
Journal of Marriage and Family 80,5 (October 2018): 1244-1258.
Also: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jomf.12512
Cohort(s): NLSY79 Young Adult
Publisher: Blackwell Publishing, Inc. => Wiley Online
Keyword(s): Canadian National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY); Childhood Adversity/Trauma; Cross-national Analysis; Family Circumstances, Changes in; Family Structure; Poverty; Pregnancy, Adolescent

Objective: This study took a long view of childhood experiences that can contribute to the risk of teen pregnancy in the United States and Canada, two countries with different norms and policies surrounding family life and inequality.

Background: Teenage pregnancy is a major life experience arising from life course trajectories unfolding during a young woman's childhood. Cross‐national comparisons can elucidate family‐based pathways while embedding youth within broader national contexts of the United States and Canada, which are similar in some respects yet different in others.

Method: Longitudinal data from the U.S. National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 Young Adult Survey (n = 3,122) and the Canadian National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (n = 2,517) connected childhood histories to teenage pregnancy. Competing risk models estimated the risk of teenage pregnancy with family structure changes and episodes in poverty during childhood.

Results: Teenage pregnancy, family change, and poverty were more common in the United States. In the United States, only multiple experiences of instability and poverty were associated with greater risk of teenage pregnancy, but, in Canada, any experience of childhood disadvantage was associated with elevated risk.

Bibliography Citation
Smith, Chelsea, Lisa Strohschein and Robert Crosnoe. "Family Histories and Teen Pregnancy in the United States and Canada." Journal of Marriage and Family 80,5 (October 2018): 1244-1258.