It has been postulated that American welfare assistantship programs are somewhat to blame. I think it has been discussed here (sorry to repeat it, and for not quoting -- I forgot who mentioned it).
Basically the programs to help "single mothers" was created to help widowed mothers support their family. Eventually some women realized that having a baby is not that bad as they can take advantage of the "single mother" status. There is sort of a logical reasoning behind it.
Now, not that every girl goes through that logical reasoning and decides on having a baby. Rather with time this choice of having a baby become "encoded" in the culture as something else "it is cool" or "it bring attention" or "status". Girls see other girls get attention and acquire status when they have children to they want to emulate.
Basically in this particular case, the welfare system completely backfired and instead of just helping, it started expanding the population segment that would take advantage of a particular feature.
I don't know why it's such a bad thing to give welfare assistance to young single mothers. This should be extended to all mothers regardless of marital status or age. Parenting in America has turned into a scary, expensive headache, rather than the normal way of perpetuating the species.
Americans complain that "only stupid people are breeding" but we do almost nothing to make having kids easier for non-stupid, gainfully employed people. In contrast, places like Norway, Japan and Australia basically pay women of to have children, regardless of social status.
> It has been postulated that American welfare assistantship programs are somewhat to blame.
I don't know how significant such aid was with the folks that I knew. I think that a bigger factor was the culture.
In most cases, they got their basics from family, so the assistance went for "luxuries". It's not enough for real luxuries, but it's enough to buy "stuff".
I don't think that the "stuff" was a big motivation, but its unclear why society should provide it.
The law was written more with the intent to help widows with small children. But it turned out that many young un-married girls could also just have a baby and take advantage of the same program. At some point having a baby became a good way to get decent welfare assistance.
It has been postulated that American welfare assistantship programs are somewhat to blame. I think it has been discussed here (sorry to repeat it, and for not quoting -- I forgot who mentioned it).
Basically the programs to help "single mothers" was created to help widowed mothers support their family. Eventually some women realized that having a baby is not that bad as they can take advantage of the "single mother" status. There is sort of a logical reasoning behind it.
Now, not that every girl goes through that logical reasoning and decides on having a baby. Rather with time this choice of having a baby become "encoded" in the culture as something else "it is cool" or "it bring attention" or "status". Girls see other girls get attention and acquire status when they have children to they want to emulate.
Basically in this particular case, the welfare system completely backfired and instead of just helping, it started expanding the population segment that would take advantage of a particular feature.