The delinquency of children born to young mothers: Results from the Rochester Youth Development Study

This paper examines the relationship between a mother's age at first childbirth and the delinquent behavior of her children. Using data from the Rochester Youth Development Study (RYDS), an ongoing longitudinal study of adolescent development, we found that children born to mothers who began childbearing at a young age were more prone to general delinquency, violence, and arrest than were children born to mothers who began childbearing when they were older. This "early first-birth effect" was far larger in white and Hispanic families than in African-American families. Mediating analyses found that the early first-birth effect was most attributable to the unstable composition of families in which early childbearing occurs. That said, a substantial portion of the effect remains unmediated.