Twins show effects of teenage motherhood

Dr Denise Hawkes, a research officer at the Institute of Education in London, surveyed 202 pairs of twins throughout the UK to establish how much family income was affected by a difference in age at the birth of a first child. Her study, Education, Earnings, Ability and Early Child Bearing: Evidence from a sample of UK twins, is the first to survey female twins who became mothers at different ages.

The women interviewed were in their forties. Those who had had their first child in their teens lost 2 per cent a year from their family income, or Pounds 12,000 over their lifetime, compared with their sisters who had their babies in their mid-twenties.

Dr Hawkes used twins because their family backgrounds were the same and comparing them in middle age gave a picture of how their lives had developed. Her research showed that girls growing up in families that were alienated from society, where parents were not interested in education and where there was long-term unemployment, were more likely to become young mothers.

She said the solution lay not in contraceptive advice or forcing lone mothers to work, but in removing the causes of poor family backgrounds associated with teenage pregnancy and encouraging families to value education, thus breaking the cycle of deprivation.

A Department for Education and Skills spokeswoman said, 'The work by Dr Denise Hawkes confirms research done under the Teenage Pregnancy Strategy.

This shows that teenage parenthood greatly increases the chances of living in poverty, in poor housing, unemployed or with low-paid employment and with poor educational qualifications in adult life, and to have partners who are unemployed and poorly qualified.'