TEEN FATHERS ARE NEGLECTED PARTNERS IN TEEN PREGNANCIES 

	CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., Aug. 23 -- What does teen pregnancy
cost? 
	A recently released study, "Kids Having Kids," figures the
price tag at roughly $29 billion a year, counting not only the cost
of welfare payments, but also the loss in national productivity and
the entire web of social problems that confront teen-age moms, their
kids and the rest of society.
	Each year, nearly one million teen-age girls in the U.S.
become pregnant.  More than 175,000 of those are 17 or younger and
more than 80 percent of these young mothers end up on welfare. 
	The issue is a timely one as the federal and state
governments reform their welfare programs. Government agencies are
requiring mothers to name the fathers of their children so they can
seek child support payments, reducing the cost of welfare to the
nation's taxpayers and encouraging families that have depended on
public assistance for years to find jobs. 
	The spotlight in "Kids Having Kids," a special report on the
costs of adolescent childbearing sponsored by the Robin Hood
Foundation, was turned on teen-age mothers and their children.
	But Michael J. Brien, an assistant professor in the
University of Virginia's economics department, and Robert J. Willis,
a professor of economics at the University of Michigan and a
research scientist at the Institute for Social Research,
collaborated on an examination of the consequences of early
fatherhood for young fathers as part of the larger study. 
	While the effects of early fatherhood are not as sharp as
for early motherhood, still some impact is seen, especially on the
youngest dads, Brien and Willis found.  In particular, the
researchers learned that boys who became fathers at 17 or younger
achieved lower levels of schooling, and faced lowered job prospects
and lower levels of life-time income. 
	While adolescent fathers completed an average of only 11.3
years of school by the age of 27, compared with 13 years for others
who delayed fatherhood until age 21, the difference often meant that
older fathers graduated high school while younger fathers did not.
Also, by age 27, adolescent fathers, earned an average of $4,732
less per year than men who delayed fathering until age 20 or 21.
	Brien and Willis also looked at teen-age mothers' partners,
who are not necessarily teen agers themselves.  Over the 18 years
following the birth of their first children, the dads of children
born to adolescent mothers earned on average $10,712 per year,
compared with $13,796 for the male partners of delayed childbearers.
	Still, fathers who do not marry the mothers of their
children generally have enough income to contribute 40 to 50 percent
of the welfare costs of the adolescent mothers and their families,
Brien and Willis' research showed. 
	"While the partners of the women that become teen mothers
may have little to provide in their early years, the evidence does
suggest growth in their income and potential child support payments
throughout the life of the child. This indicates that more rigorous
paternity establishment and child support enforcement could provide
gains to the child as well as to society," Brien and Willis wrote in
their report. 
	Founded in 1988, the Robin Hood Foundation is a public
charity that supports innovative programs serving poor people in New
York City.  In the past eight years, the foundation has provided
more than $35 million in funding, volunteers and materials to these
programs. Information gained from its community-level work led the
organization to explore the ties between adolescent childbearing and
poverty, including the sponsorship of this research project.
	In a related development, the U.Va. Teen Health Center on
Monday, Aug. 19, launched an outreach program for teen fathers, the
Young Fathers' Program.
	Using a $5,000 grant from the Virginia Department of Health,
the center has established a program that aims to educate young
fathers about caring for their children and link them with the
existing network of social agencies that can help them find and keep
jobs, according to Larry Goldstein, program coordinator.
	The program is open to young men, usually 16 to 26, from
Charlottesville and the surrounding counties, who are the fathers
to-be of the pregnant teenage mothers who are the health center's
main clients, Goldstein said.  It also includes an internship
component for students who are interested in becoming peer health
counselors or in careers in social work.
	"Our position is, each child needs two parents and both the
mother and father are irreplaceable," Goldstein says. "The U.S. has
the highest level of absent fathers of any other country.  This
program is one way we can do something about it."
	For more information about "Kids Having Kids" and the
economic costs of early fatherhood, call Michael J. Brien, at (804)
924-6750.  For more information on the fathering initiative at the
U.Va. Teen Health Center, call Larry Goldstein at (804) 982-0090.
Television reporters should contact our TV News Office at (804)
924-7550.
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August 22, 1996