Teenage childbearing and alcohol use among adolescent are two areas of national concern. Although both problems have been studied intensively as separate issues, very little research has looked at their intersection. We know that sexually active teens are more likely than their peers to be involved in other problem behaviors including alcohol use. We also know that teenage childbearing has numerous negative consequences for both the mother and her children. We do not know, however, whether alcohol use affects the likelihood of actually having a teenage birth. And, conversely, we do not know the effect having a teenage birth has on alcohol consumption patterns. Finally, we do not know what role alcohol use among teenage mothers plays in the observed negative outcomes for both her and her children. The research described here proposes to examine these important issues using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY). The NLSY Is a large, nationally representative sample of youth aged 14-21 in 1979 who have been interviewed annually through the present. In 1986 the children of the female respondents were assessed with a number of well-validated measures of cognitive, behavioral, and emotional development. Additional information about the home environment was also obtained. Of the nearly 3,000 women who were mothers as of the 1986 survey, half had begun childbearing during their teenage years. And of the approximately 5200 children born to women in the NLSY, slightly more than 3,000 were born to women who began childbearing during their teenage years. The large proportion of teenage mothers and their children in the NLSY coupled with the richness of the data set with information on the youth over 8 consecutive years including important control variables such as drug use, as well as retrospective questions on the youth's family background and other topics is well-suited for studying the above questions. Analyses will employ crosstabulation and regression techniques such as OLS, logit analysis, and ordered probit analysis.
