| Ted Futris
University of North Carolina at Greensboro
The developmental trajectories of teenage males who become fathers compared to those who delay fatherhood
FINAL REPORT:
Teenage childbearing has become and remains a troubling social issue because adolescent parents are inadequately prepared to assume the economic, social, and psychological responsibilities of parenthood, and because early childbearing can disrupt development and reduce prospects of realizing one's potential. Consequently, adolescent fathers are more likely to get low paying jobs and eventually disconnect from their children both socially and financially.
Using a life course and risk and resiliency perspective, this study examined the educational trajectories of three groups of adolescent fathers (N = 160) who (a) continue and complete high school, (b) drop.out of high school but return, and (c) drop out of high school and stay out. Data were derived from the National Education Longitudinal Study, a nationally-representative longitudinal study of nearly 25,000 eighth graders followed in two year increments between 1988 and 1994. Distributional matching across socioeconomic status and race resulted in a comparison group of adolescent males who delayed fatherhood that resembled those adolescents who became fathers. Both between- and within-group comparisons were made across various individual, familial, and community risk and protective factors using computer-intensive resampling methods.
The findings revealed that the timing of fatherhood effects one's education. Becoming a father while enrolled in school is less likely to hinder high school completion than is becoming a father after dropping out. Nevertheless, adolescent fathers were still more likely to drop out and less likely to eventually complete high school compared to their nonfather peers. While the general profiles of fathers and nonfathers were distinct, fewer differences existed between them on the risk and protective factors when comparisons were made across the three educational trajectory groups. Further, the findings showed that among the adolescent fathers (a) there are many differences across the factors typically associated with educational outcomes; (b) the magnitude of these differences increase as the fathers' educational trajectories diverge from school completion; and (c) the presence of protective factors are more prevalent among fathers whose educational trajectories move towards completion. As students, fathers who completed high school, on average, were more successful, less disruptive, more optimistic, affiliated with like peers, and came from families that were more supportive of and involved in their education.
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