>>Lots of statistical reasons to avoid teen pregnancy in the contemporary First World. Social/financial effect on mum is self-explanatory, especially if it affects her educational prospects and dad skives off. 80% of such mums rely on welfare at some point. She's also at higher risk of some serious complications of birth. If dad sticks around there are higher alcohol and substance abuse risks for him as well, including lower educational status and reduced earning potential forever after. Kids are not spared: kids of teen mums suffer more health and social problems than those of older mums. They too exhibit lower educational achievement as well as more delinquency and higher risk of repeating the cycle themselves.
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>Those are interesting statistics, but here's another one:
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>>More than 80 percent of teen births are to unmarried
>teens, up from only 15 percent in 1960
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>http://www.thenationalcampaign.org/why-it-matters/pdf/marriage.pdf
>
>So is the issue teenage pregnancy or new norms about when and if women marry?

I think there are two factors here. One is that lots of people are marrying later (and, in fact, there's a correlation between education levels and age at marriage, and between age at marriage and lifetime income, the latter especially for women). (http://twentysomethingmarriage.org/in-brief/)

The other, I think, is that there's no longer an imperative to marry when a girl becomes pregnant. Used to be that if a boy got a girl pregnant, he married her. Not so much any more.

Tamar