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University of Wisconsin–Madison
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty

Tag: Family planning

Childbearing Trends

3 charts that show America’s poverty problems start at birth, By Danielle Kurtzelben, July 9, 2014, Vox: “A new Census report confirms a few longstanding childbearing trends: women are having children more and more outside of marriage, and more educated women tend to have children later. But it also shows something more surprising: the share of children born into poverty is large, and it may be getting worse. In 2012, more than one in four women having kids — nearly 28 percent — were living in poverty that year. That’s up markedly from 2008, when the share was only 25 percent. By comparison, only around 15 percent of Americans were in poverty altogether that year. . .”

LA Times Series on the World’s Population

Beyond 7 billion, series homepage, By Kenneth R. Weiss, Los Angeles Times: “After remaining stable for most of human history, the world’s population has exploded over the last two centuries. The boom is not over: The biggest generation in history is just entering its childbearing years. The coming wave will reshape the planet, and the impact will be greatest in the poorest, most unstable countries…”

Teenage Pregnancy

Teenage pregnancy: High US rates due to poverty, not promiscuity, By Stephanie Hanes, May 22, 2012, Christian Science Monitor: “Why is a teenage girl in Mississippi four times as likely to give birth than a teenage girl in New Hampshire? (And 15 times more likely to give birth than a teen in Switzerland?) Or why is the teen birth rate in Massachusetts 19.6 per 1,000, while it’s 47.7 per 1,000 in Washington, D.C.? And why, despite a 40 percent drop over two decades, are teen moms still far more common in the US than elsewhere across the developed world? (And nope, it’s not that American teens have more sex. Many studies have found that US teenagers have less sex than compatriots in Europe.) The answer, according to a study published today in the Journal of Economic Perspectives, may well lie in social inequality…”