who still start before their mid twenties, although we also point to the pre-existing
disadvantages of these mothers too. The chances of a complete shift occurring, right
across the board, to later motherhood, would also be increased if the inequalities of
opportunity underlying inequalities in age at motherhood were abated, as the Teenage
Pregnancy Strategy also recognised (SEU 1999).
If the disadvantages facing women who start childbearing early are purely the result of
unintended timing, as many seemed to be, it can be argued that interventions to improve
their reproductive control would eliminate these adverse consequences. If on the other
hand the disadvantages reflect solely pre-existing disadvantages, a change in birth timing
(if feasible) would at best make no difference to the economic outcomes for women
whose early childbearing was postponed. If both sets of influences operate they are
likely to interact and compound one another. Our evidence is consistent with that from
smaller datasets which suggests that both directions of influence operate, and that early
motherhood reflects prior disadvantages as well as consequent ones. One implication is
to aim interventions at both generations early in the lifecourse, helping support women
who do become mothers as well as helping others to delay motherhood, through
improved alternative economic opportunities as well as improved contraception and
information. The follow-up surveys will show whether the dwindling minority of women
who became the popularly demonized ‘teenage mothers’ in the New Century, under fuller
established New Labour Policies, have greater success at escaping from disadvantage
than their predecessors in the 1990s.
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