When will teenage childbearing become a problem? The implications of western experience for developing countries.

This article reflects on the process that leads to perceptions of teenage childbearing as a social problem and examines whether that process will occur in developing countries as it has in the United States. In postindustrial Western economies, family and adult control over young peoples' sexual behavior has loosened, while marriage rates have declined. In the United States, nonmarital births to adolescents, particularly among poor minorities who have few opportunities and reasons to delay childbearing, have become a cause for public concern. However, the economic, educational, and nuptial changes that have occurred in other postindustrial countries have not necessarily led to fertility problems among teenagers, because of a greater willingness to acknowledge their sexual activity and to provide the resources to prevent their childbearing. Although developing nations may undergo changes that result in more schooling and greater autonomy for adolescents, whether nonmarital births will come to constitute a problem will depend on many different factors; the United States provides an example of the conditions they may wish to avoid.