• Obtain less education,
• Have fewer job possibilities and lower income,
• Be divorced or separated from her partner (405, 450), and
• Live in poverty.

Many societies, however, condemn unmarried young women who bear children, regarding their emotional or economic suffering as fitting (366). Thus many families prefer to marry off daughters while still young to avoid the risk that a girl will become pregnant before marriage. In societies where divorce is unacceptable, women forced to marry young because of pregnancy may be expected to endure violence or neglect without recourse (359). If a young woman becomes pregnant before marriage, she may be driven from her home or sent away by her parents. When a young woman finds the prospect of social and family sanctions too much to bear, she may run away or attempt suicide (293). Around the world a disproportionate number of suicides are committed by pregnant adolescents (89, 162).

Educational consequences. Young women who begin childbearing early complete less schooling than women who delay childbearing until their 20s (272, 273, 406). In developing countries schoolgirls who become pregnant rarely return to school, whether they are married or not (178). In Kenya alone nearly 10,000 are forced to leave school every year because they are pregnant (154). In Kenya and other countries schools routinely expel young women who become pregnant, while action is rarely taken against male students who cause pregnancy. Many young women risk unsafe abortion to avoid leaving school. Even though some countries are modifying policies of expelling pregnant schoolgirls, most young women cannot return to school after giving birth because they must care for the child (178). Some outreach programs and women's centers around the world help young mothers combine motherhood and school (232, 385, 409). For example, the Jamaican Women's Center Program reported that 64% of its participants returned to school, compared with 15% of nonparticipants (232). Unfortunately, such programs are few.

Economic consequences. Because of social and economic changes going on throughout the developing world, the economic consequences of early parenthood often are more extreme and longer-lasting today than in the past. Increasingly, young women as well as young men find that they need wage- paying jobs, and they need education to get those jobs. Where young women's opportunities for economic advancement are scarce, as in rural areas of many developing countries, early childbearing may not worsen a young woman's already poor economic prospects. Most urban areas, however, offer a young woman some opportunity for a paying job if she has the skills. Thus in cities a woman who has a child before age 20 may suffer the same economic setbacks as her counterpart in developed countries, largely because her education has been cut short (209, 530). In the relationship between poverty and early parenthood, causality appears to run in both directions (582). The poorest women are the most likely to have children while young, and those having children while young also are likely to remain in poverty (23, 43, 179, 273). In the extreme, many young unmarried mothers are forced to sell sex to support themselves and their infants (516).

Most developing countries do little legally to mandate that the father provide financial support for the mother and infant. Even where support is mandated, as in the US, enforcement may be erratic or ineffective. In some societies unmarried young women who give birth receive economic support from the child's father or his family, especially when the father officially acknowledges paternity (373). This support may help keep a young unmarried mother out of poverty, as a Chilean study suggests (79), but support may be irregular or stop after several years (530).

Consequences for boys. Even though early fatherhood may enhance a young man's social status in some societies, boys who become fathers early also may lose opportunities for education or future economic advancement. Those who marry may leave school to support their new families (440). Researchers have only recently begun examining the impact of adolescent fatherhood on young men in developed countries (42, 277, 369, 453). Little information is available from developing countries.

Social costs. Especially where the family fails to provide economic sustenance for the young parents and their child, early childbearing imposes a cost on society. These costs, rarely quantified, include the lost productivity of undereducated and impoverished young people who become parents too soon, especially single mothers (82), as well as government expenditures. In the US, public welfare expenditures for women who first give birth before age 20 amount to $10 billion each year (77). Although social welfare costs may not be so large in most other countries, costs of health care for young mothers and their children can be a considerable part of health and social welfare expenditures.