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Kathryn J. Edin, Maria J. KefalasA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Edin and Kefalas’s work focuses on low-income, unwed women who experience unintended pregnancy before their education is complete. Their struggles often infuriate the American public since the number of unwed mothers has increased from 1 in 20 in 1950 to one in three at the time of the book’s publication in 2002: “Having a child while single is three times as common for the poor as the affluent” (2). The authors also acknowledge that social science research indicates that children benefit when their parents marry and remain together, stating that “children raised outside of marriage typically learn less in school, are more likely to graduate from high school and enroll in college, and have more trouble finding jobs” (3). The cycle of poverty persists because single parents are frequently not only poor but face other disadvantages. Many conclude that these women should wait to have children until they are married and established financially, and public policy has encouraged marriage as an antidote to impoverishment. However, the authors argue that the reasons for the divergence between marriage and childbearing are not obvious. Their study addresses this gap in social science research by studying family formation among 162 single mothers in low-income neighborhoods of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and the adjacent New Jersey city of Camden.
The researchers spent five years collecting qualitative data from the women in these impoverished neighborhoods. They found that their subjects did not reject marriage; instead, most expressed a willingness to wed one day. However, these unwed, young women see the birth of a child as an opportunity to improve one’s life, not a tragedy as middle-class critics suggest.
Qualitative evidence suggests that young couples stop using birth control quickly and often decide, like Antonia Rodriguez, to have a child while still in their teens. Others judge their partner’s suitability via pregnancy: Many couples intend to remain together, but their relationships fall apart because of the father’s behavior, which may include cheating. The book’s evidence shows that these women have given marriage a “radical redefinition” (8). Its primary purpose is no longer family-building as it was in the 1950s. Instead, the subjects of this study indicate that they want careers and financial security before marrying because these things offer women control and independence: “In a surprising reversal of the middle-class norm, they believe it is better to have children outside of marriage than to marry unwisely only to get divorced later” (9). Low-income women see good parenting as being there for their children and motherhood as an opportunity to excel in life. Their children are not a burden but a strength.
Philadelphia’s economy began to decline in the 1950s when manufacturing jobs left, and this trend continued into the 1990s. White residents left for the suburbs and nonmarital birth rates increased from 20% in 1950 to 62% by 2000. Single-parent homes in Camden and many of Philadelphia’s low-income neighborhoods are predominant, according to census data. Poverty crosses racial boundaries in these poor areas, so class drives much of the study.
Edin and Kefalas embedded in the neighborhoods they studied to perform their qualitative research. Edin lived in an East Camden apartment with her family for two years and built connections within the community. Kefalas connected with a GED program for teen moms and other social services, where she spent significant time with young, low-income mothers. They built enough trust that these young women celebrated Kefalas’s pregnancy, and she was invited to their homes. The researchers also contacted local social service agencies and organizations and spoke with local businesses to understand the diversity of families who lived in these neighborhoods. Their early contacts introduced them to other unwed mothers. The study participants were white, African American, and Puerto Rican and ranged in age from 15 to 56. They all earned less than $16,000 a year, which marked the federal poverty line at the time the study was conducted in the 1990s. Some received welfare, and many lived with family members or a partner. Forty-five percent did not complete high school; 15% had a GED, and one-third had attended college or some other post-secondary training program. Most gave birth for the first time as teens.
Edin and Kefalas collected qualitative data via interviews with their participants, in which they discussed why they did not marry and why they had children. They learned much about their backgrounds and “life histories” through these conversations (25).
The researchers ask why low-income couples commonly have children when they are very young. Many of the women interviewed linked romance and pregnancy with the fathers of their children, proclaiming they wanted to have babies with them shortly after their relationships began. The case of Antonia Rodriguez and her boyfriend, Emilio, exemplifies this scenario. They met as teens and began planning to have children shortly after their courtship began, though they intended to wait a year or two. Nevertheless, pregnancy happened swiftly with Antonia conceiving at 14. This “haphazard” scenario is common in the neighborhoods under study. A man proclaiming his desire to father a child with a young woman is high praise for her, but it does not mean a lifelong commitment. Having children is also a social achievement, and many of the women interviewed felt prepared because they were involved in helping rear younger siblings and other family members. Some young women become pregnant to “escape a troubled home life” (33). They also yearn for the love of their children in communities where trust in others is limited: “Trust among residents of poor communities is astonishingly low—so low that most mothers we spoke with said they had no close friends, and many even distrust close kin” (34). Children fill the void left by this “relational poverty,” and many women view having children as the beginning of their lives. Alternatively, some women become pregnant when they succumb to a boyfriend’s wishes, even though they are not ready.
Many pregnancies among young, unwed women in these low-income neighborhoods are not accidental but are also not fully planned. Couples may alternate between using and not using birth control, or they stop using birth control and leave circumstances to fate. Stopping birth control signals trust in an established relationship. Others’ risky lifestyles cause them to not care if they become pregnant. The researchers remark that unwed motherhood comes with little social cost in these communities and fails to diminish a woman’s “future prospects”: “Most only believe that becoming a mother gets in the way if a girl lets it” (40). Eighteen-year-old Nikki, for example, declares that having a child will not stop her from attending college, while Ebony became pregnant as a first-year college student. These women name other single women they see as good, successful mothers and role models, and “they insist it doesn’t take a college education, a good job, a big house, matching furniture—or a marriage license—to be a good mother” (41).
These women are thus happy when they conceive because their babies provide them with a hopeful future. They view abortion as shirking one’s responsibilities and adoption as giving away one’s child. The researchers note that wealthier teens who become pregnant choose abortion approximately two-thirds of the time, while low-income teens choose it less often—around half the time. The study participants predominantly believe that abortion should only be an option in dire circumstances. By contrast, having a baby allows a young woman to prove herself capable to her family and community and almost as a rite of passage into adulthood.
Low-income women see motherhood as a central dream, even if their pregnancies are not precisely planned. Terminations happen infrequently because from their perspective, ending the pregnancy means hope’s expiration. The authors present that middle-class and wealthy Americans see unwed motherhood as irresponsible and disruptive to one’s ambitions. In contrast, low-income women believe starting a family at a young age may not be “ideal,” but since their “economic prospects” are already bleak, they have little to lose by doing so (49).
Edin and Kefalas introduce readers to the major themes of their work from the outset. The Socioeconomic Determinants of Family Formation are central to their study as they question why marriage rates have fallen and the rates of unwed motherhood have risen since the 1950s, especially in low-income communities. Their central research question is whether these phenomena are linked.
The authors articulate their thesis that social and economic factors have contributed to the retreat from marriage among low-income women. In contrast to classist and often racist stereotypes about these populations, Erin and Kefalas assert that these statistics do not mean that low-income people devalue marriage. Instead, the researchers assert that the opposite is true. Low-income women also highly value having children, which explains why unwed mothers keep their pregnancies when they conceive at a young age. The researchers observe that Good Mothering and “Being There” for one’s children bring value and social capital to a young woman’s life and cost little.
This section also explores how some outside observers conclude that pregnancies among poor, unwed women are accidental and thus tragic mistakes that derail their futures and trap parents and their children in poverty. They believe that the poor are to blame for their lack of family planning, and this stereotype affects welfare policies and other aspects of the social safety net. However, Edin and Kefalas use qualitative data to show that low-income individuals do engage in some family planning, although pregnancies may arrive earlier than intended. Above all, they do not view their unwed pregnancies as tragic, and young motherhood highlights The Challenges for and Resilience of Low-Income Mothers. Low-income women view young motherhood as an opportunity to prove one’s worth via good mothering.
The researchers also introduce the scope and parameters of their studying in these chapters. Inner-city Philadelphia and nearby Camden prove an ideal setting for their study because the birthrate among unmarried women rose dramatically between the 1950s and 1990s. The area also suffered from deindustrialization that began in the 1950s: “For much of the five decades since, Philadelphia and its inner industrial suburbs have been in economic free fall” (13). White flight set in, and the racial and ethnic make-up of the city shifted. Poor white people, however, live in similar circumstances to Black and Latino inner-city residents, and the researchers assert that socioeconomic determinants of family formation cross racial and ethnic boundaries. Class is the driving factor, Edin and Kefalas suggest, in the high rates of pregnancy among the unmarried. Indeed, the women studied share remarkably similar attitudes toward motherhood and marriage despite their racial differences.
The study is structured around the arc of a young couple’s relationship and addresses how romantic partnerships change, often deteriorating after conception and a child’s birth. As part of their qualitative methodology, they include case studies about specific women’s stories. In the first case study, Antonia Rodriguez and her boyfriend, Emilio, are an exception to this pattern of relationship failure. Antonia became pregnant at 14 and dropped out of high school. The way this family formed is “haphazard” and illustrates larger trends in the eight neighborhoods Edin and Kefalas studied, though these two ultimately stay together. The researchers observed that young men frequently proclaim they want to have babies with their partners, sometimes within a few weeks of dating. This declaration is not merely a pick-up line but a form of high praise for a young woman as “she is the kind of woman he is willing to entrust with the upbringing of his progeny” (31). Emilio and Antonia, for instance, began planning to have children soon after they began dating and did not use birth control. Simultaneously, this declaration does not signal a long-term commitment but instead promotes “a long-lasting bond through a child” (129). This declaration is the first step toward a young woman achieving social capital while living in an economically and relationally impoverished community. These young women do not fear parenthood because they usually already have experience helping care for children within their families, including younger siblings or cousins. This contrasts with the panic middle-class teens may feel when they become pregnant and whose stories tend to dominate conversations about teen pregnancy. Middle-class teens are less likely to have experience with childrearing since their families can afford childcare, and their families place high value on their education and career prospects.
Edin and Kefalas stress that the life and career trajectories of lower-class individuals are different than middle- and upper-class women. Low-income young women like Antonia do not have the same prospects as the middle class, so instead they focus on family formation: “Visions of shared children stand in vivid, living color against a monochromatic backdrop of otherwise dismal prospects” (32). The inner-city schools these youth attend are underfunded, and good employment opportunities are limited. As such, having a child while still in one’s teens is viewed as less of a sacrifice since these individuals’ options are limited anyway. These unwed mothers understand and have access to contraception and abortion, but they do not always use these resources for the above reasons. Children give these women a sense of purpose they cannot get elsewhere. In short, Edin and Kefalas suggest strong social and economic forces encourage low-income young women to have children outside of marriage.