People in deprived areas face two kinds of hazard, Nettle says. First, there are constraints on what they are able to do to mitigate their situation. Diet is a prime example: "It's much more expensive to get 2000 calories a day from fresh fruit and vegetables compared with eating junk food," Nettle says. Then the environment is often physically more dangerous and unhealthy. "People are doing more dangerous jobs. There is probably more air pollution, more car accidents, a higher crime rate, poorer housing - things you cannot really do much about, which trigger a downward spiral of faster living and less attention to health."This is not a new conclusion. However, the political right wing seems to dislike any policies that address those problems. If our society is going to focus on making changes, these issues would be an excellent place to start, rather than vilifying, demeaning or mocking the poor.
In a study of over 8000 families, he found that in the most deprived parts of England people can barely expect 50 years of healthy life, nearly two decades less than in affluent areas. And sure enough, women from poor neighbourhoods are likely to have their babies at an early age and in quick succession.
At a meeting last year, Sarah Johns at the University of Kent in Canterbury, UK, reported that in her study of young women from a range of socioeconomic backgrounds in Gloucestershire, UK, those who perceived their environment as risky or dangerous, and those that thought they might die at a relatively young age, were more likely to become mothers while they were in their teens.
It's the same story in the US.Given that the US and the UK have vastly different access to abortion, but a similar outcome in terms of young mothers in poverty, I do not think abortion access explains this.
Evidence from many sources suggests that teen pregnancy rates are similar in poor and affluent communities.... Teenage girls from affluent backgrounds are more likely to have abortions than their less-privileged peers.Which is interesting, if tenuously supported. It unfortunately isn't clear whether this applies to the US, the UK, or both, which is sloppy, given the issue of access to abortion in the US. But it doesn't argue that teenage girls, at least, are deciding to get pregnant younger in poorer communities - it highlights that a different set of factors are going into their decisions about whether or not to seek abortion.
In sum, research findings highlight the important and previously underemphasized role that disadvantaged conditions prior to pregnancy play in the poor outcomes seen among teen mothers and their children. There is general consensus that earlier studies exaggerated the consequences of teen child-bearing because they failed to effectively take these background factors into account. [Source]Basically we do not know that teen mothers and children of teen mothers do worse; we just assume they do. There are very righteous teenage mothers out there, doing the best they can against enormous odds, not the least of which is the bias of the society they live in against them.
To change behaviour we have to change the environment, which means that actually reducing poverty in the most deprived areas is likely to do a much better job than education schemes or handing out morning-after pills.That's a bizarre false dichotomy and ignores the fact that the uneducated are the first to go into poverty when the economy goes down. Given the carelessness with which the writers throw these ideas around, I don't know whether they're nihilists or fundie christians.
There is considerable evidence that persons who engage in risky criminal activities discount the future steeply.What would make persons discount the future? Perhaps they have good reason to believe that they don’t have much of a future.
in Chicago, there are large variations in life expectancy between neighborhoods, and expected future life span is a good predictor of neighborhood-specific homicide rates, even if expected life span is computed with the mortality effects of homicide itself removedIf the mortality rates in your neighborhood are high, and it is possible that you can die any day from causes outside your control, and you know it, taking risks and engaging in criminal behavior is quite appealing. Daly and Wilson are quick to point out that
such inability to delay gratification is usually interpreted as a sign of immaturity and pathologyand are quick to dispel the notion. They write:
steep discounting of the future is just what a properly functioning evolved psyche might be expected to do in the sorts of social and material circumstances that are especially likely to foster violent crime.posted by AceRock at 9:11 PM on July 23, 2010 [1 favorite]
You mean rational if the ultimate goal is to stay poor and die young? Most of the young women I've worked with that were having children as teens weren't aware of the mathematical correlations between age of entering motherhood and decreased lifetime income. How much information does one need as a child (we are talking about girls, not adults) to make this decision and have it be considered and rational?That's only "irrational" if you an autistic, chicago school econo-tard who measures the rationality of all results in dollars. If you just go by evolutionary imparitive, it clearly "makes sense" for your genes to have more babies sooner.
Some of us can't have children even if we want as educated adults because we can't afford them.The baby itself is free. Maybe you mean all the ancilary stuff like clothes and food, but you're only aware of those costs if you're "educated"
So, having a baby and raising it costs less than an abortion? I don't get it.It might cost more, but it's a delayed cost and one that you pay month to month, not right away. They don't eat that much at first and they don't really start to get expensive untill they start school
Unmarried adolescent mothers who keep their babies have lower rates of juvenile delinquency than girls who have abortions or give up their babies for adoption, according to new research... Moreover, there is little connection between receiving welfare and delinquency among young girls.So basically at this point, I am going with "the reality of being a teen mother is not the stereotype of teen motherhood."
« Older Mila's Daydreams:... | Iranian kids brush off the gov... Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by infini at 11:18 AM on July 23, 2010