Teenage mothers - the right to work and study

Abstract

Introduction: Lone mothers tend to face economic disadvantages (Heuveline, Timberlake and Furstenberg 2003:48) Female-headed households tend to have the highest rate of poverty and the highest rate of welfare in Western countries (Sigle-Rushton & McLanahan 2002:3). This might be due to a number of reasons, especially if getting pregnant interrupted a mother’s education and forced her into finding employment within the less secure sectors of the labour market. In this paper the term single parent will be used to refer to never married persons who have children. Although this social category has particular interests and needs, it shares some interests and needs that are similar to those of other women and other lone parents. Lone parents in this paper refers to persons with dependent children who are not living with a partner of the opposite sex, who are single never married, separated, annulled, divorced or widowed (Abela 1998:45). The main focus of this paper is going to be mainly on unmarried teenage mothers and how lone parenthood at a young age might affect access to education, employment and general welfare. The paper gives a cursory glance at some of the research carried out on this topic in the Maltese Islands and abroad to find out how differential access to education, employment and social services impact on young unmarried mothers, with what consequences. Although young unmarried mothers are often taken as a category, social factors and circumstances tend to render them heterogeneous. This means that policies, programmes and services need to be constructed and implemented to cater for the different needs of this social category.