Teenage parenthood is thought to have long term consequences for the life trajectory of young parents, with the responsibilities of small children restricting the time available to parents to invest in education and establish social networks at this crucial life course stage. It also results in normative tensions, with childbearing happening “out of order” with respect to the other key markers of the transition to adulthood.
In this study, they take a multi-dimensional approach to the idea of the labour market consequences of teenage parenthood, following young men and women across their first decade on the labour market in Sweden, to investigate if becoming a teenage parent is associated with different and more disadvantaged labour market pathways than for their siblings. Using sequence analysis and sibling models with Swedish register data, their results illustrate that while most teenage parents follow labour market trajectories that are not characterised by entrenched disadvantage, teenage parenthood represents an increased risk of disruption of the labour market career, mainly by delaying the entry of employment linked to decent earnings. The difficulties faced upon early childbearing are even more evident among women, who face much higher risk of entrenched patterns of sustained low wage employment or patterns of long-term NEET or unemployment.
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