Radcliffe Study Challenges Perceptions Of Welfare, Teen Motherhood

A new study on teenage sexuality and pregnancy in low-income America released by Radcliffe College earlier this month questions some of the widely held public perceptions of teenage motherhood and welfare reform.

The study, conducted by Radcliffe Public Policy Fellow Lisa Dodson, suggests that teenage pregnancy and motherhood among low-income children are caused by their belief that they are not receiving a good education and have no future in terms of college or other opportunities.

Dodson said that she worked with a group of ethnically diverse low-income girls in the Policy Fellow Lisa Dodson, suggests that teenage pregnancy and motherhood among low-income children are caused by their belief that they are not receiving a good education and have no future in terms of college or other opportunities.

Dodson said that she worked with a group of ethnically diverse low-income girls in the greater Boston area to get her data. Rather than making assumptions about teenage pregnancy, Dodson says the researchers asked the girls what they thought the main issues involved were.

"We asked questions about their lives, their relationships, about the pressures they were facing," she says.

"About 60 percent of the girls who were sexually active said they didn't think they were ready at the time that they began to have sex," Dodson adds, "but that they felt a lot of pressure to establish relationships with guys."

Dodson says that many of the girls studied said they felt sexual pressure and believed they had few options in life and no real future if they did not get pregnant.

"They talked about their relationships, about a culture in which they feel a lot of sexual pressure and about a world in which they have very few options for their own individual development," she says.

Policy Debates

According to Dodson, she believes the study is significant because it has altered the debate over welfare reform.

She says that the study is significant for policy debates because the girls were not having children to get on welfare, so punishing them by taking welfare away would not make sense.

"In fact not a single girl mentioned welfare or any form of public assistance [as a reason to get pregnant]," Dodson says.

"From my point of view, we've turned the debate into a debate about people and about girls' lives and not just teen pregnancy and ways to punish girls," she says.

Future Research

Dodson adds that she is going to continue working with this line of research focusing on low-income women.

"I'm looking at the development of young women or, I should say, of teenagers growing into young women--the next life stage really, and how they cope and, in particular, poor girls who have grown into young women," she says.

Dodson says she is especially looking to address the problems that young mothers face as they try to return to school.

"We're asking them about the obstacles they face, both in their own families and their own lives and other obstacles in order to pursue education which for many girls and many women is the only way out of poverty," she says.