Childbearing Among Unwed African American Adolescents: A Critique of Theories

Abstract

Although nonmarital births are on the rise for all women, they are disproportionately high for adolescents, especially those who are poor and African American. Scholars agree that adolescent childbearing results in negative outcomes. This critique of the problem of adolescent pregnancy from various theoretical paradigms argues that the alternate-lifestyle paradigm is a rational explanatory model for the analysis of adolescent pregnancy. That is, some female adolescents, regardless of race, see childbearing as a rite of passage to adulthood.