Differential outcomes among adolescent fathers: understanding fatherhood as a transformative process

In response to the rising numbers of mother headed households, there is a great debate about whether to encourage young unwed parents to marry. Policies designed to pursue and/or punish fathers who do not meet their legal and financial responsibilities and to promote marriage, carte blanche, are referred to as "the marriage agenda." This agenda is reactive to the social costs of single motherhood, which have included high rates of poverty and a heavy reliance on public programs for economic support (Carlson, McLanahan & England, 2001; Coley, 2001; Furstenberg, 1995).