Marriage Following Single Adolescent Parenthood: Relationship to Adult Well-Being

Purpose: Research has shown that relative to the unmarried, married adults experience greater well-being on a number of factors including greater affluence, less substance abuse, less depression, lower suicide rates, better physical health, longer lives, greater happiness and well-being, more emotional satisfaction with partners, better sex lives and greater wealth. However, little is known about whether marriage following a teenage birth by an unwed mother confers benefits similar to those seen among adults. This is important to know because current U.S. policy encourages single mothers to marry as an antidote to poverty, yet some studies suggest that the fathers of the teens' babies may not be good marriage prospects. Moreover, most of the prior studies have been cross-sectional and the causal direction of the relationship cannot be determined with such data—it may be that individuals who experience greater well-being are “selected” into marriage, as opposed to marriage itself providing benefits.

Method: To examine this question, we used longitudinal data from a community sample of 235 young women who gave birth as unmarried adolescents and were followed for a period of approximately 16 years following the births of their babies. We assessed substance use, economic adversity, high school completion and psychological well-being using well-validated measures. Strengths of this dataset are the long period of follow-up, a low attrition rate, and the younger age of respondents relative to that of other studies of marriage benefits.

Results: By the time respondents were age 32, on average, about two-thirds had married at least once following the birth of their babies. Using partial correlations in which we controlled for preexisting marriage “benefits,” we found that relative to those who never married following the birth of a baby, those who married experienced somewhat less economic adversity and less use of marijuana and polydrug use, but no observable benefits with regard to use of alcohol or other drugs, psychological well-being, or high school completion, in contrast to prior findings. Moreover, we also found that most of the young women who eventually married, did not marry the fathers of their babies—only about 14% married the fathers. Our results suggest that marriage among these young mothers who gave birth as unmarried adolescents seemed to confer some small benefits that are not likely attributable to selection effects. Importantly, marriage did not appear disadvantageous with regard to the factors studied (substance use, psychological well-being, economic outcomes and educational attainment), possibly because the vast majority of the young mothers did not marry the fathers of their babies. Finally, we suspect that it is not marriage per se that confers psychological benefits, but a stable, long-lasting relationship.

Implications: Current U.S. policy to encourage marriage among single mothers may be misguided efforts. Social workers need to provide as much support as possible to single young mothers so that they do not marry hastily. Moreover, studies need to be undertaken to better understand whether marriage to the fathers of babies born to unmarried adolescent mother is advantageous or possibly even harmful.