Chapter 3.4 · A generation back

Teen births

Among women born in 1978 to 1983 whose parents were at the 25th income percentile, the Opportunity Atlas predicts a teen birth for 38.5% of those raised in tracts in the most deprived tenth by their 2019 to 2023 deprivation rank and 12.9% in the least deprived tenth, and Black women's predicted share exceeds white women's by 17.6 points in the same tracts, with no detectable change across levels of deprivation.

Author: Vishal Singh
Affiliation: NYU Stern
Published: 9 October 2026

Among women raised by parents at the 25th percentile of the national income distribution, the Opportunity Atlas predicts that 38.5% (95% CI 37.8% to 39.3%) of those who grew up in the most deprived tenth of census tracts had a teen birth, against 12.9% (95% CI 11.9% to 14.0%) in the least deprived tenth, where tracts are ranked by their deprivation in 2019 to 2023, a generation after the births.[1] A teen birth here means that a woman claimed, as a dependent, a child born when she was between the ages of 13 and 19. The women were born in 1978 to 1983, so their births fell in the 1990s and early 2000s, and every predicted share in this chapter is the Atlas's model prediction for that cohort, now in middle age, and not a current teen birth rate.

Inside the same tract, the prediction differs by race. Where the Atlas estimates both groups, Black women's predicted share exceeds white women's by 17.6 (95% CI 17.0 to 18.2) points and Hispanic women's exceeds it by 10.9 (95% CI 10.3 to 11.5) points, while Asian women's falls below it by 7.1 (95% CI 6.3 to 8.0) points. The Black-white gap shows no detectable change from the least to the most deprived tenth of tracts, so in these data the gradient by deprivation and the gap by race run in parallel.

The chapter on recent births, Chapter 1.3, Where births are falling, counts births to mothers aged 15 to 19 in each county for 2018 to 2024 and reports no rates, because the staged files hold no counts of women by age. The measure here differs in its population (women raised in a tract, not mothers living in a county), its period (births in the 1990s and early 2000s), its age band (from age 13) and its form (a predicted share of women, not a count of births). The two should not be read as one series.

How the Atlas measures a teen birth

The Opportunity Atlas links tax and census records to follow children born in 1978 to 1983 from the census tract where they grew up into adulthood.[1] Its teen birth measure is the fraction of women who grew up in a tract and ever claimed, as a dependent, a child born when they were between the ages of 13 and 19. The Atlas reports it as a predicted value for women whose parents were at a given percentile of the national income distribution, here the 25th, so it describes women from low-income families and not every woman in the tract. A birth counts only when the mother claimed the child, so births to teenage mothers whose children someone else claimed are missed.

The Atlas adds noise to each estimate to protect privacy, and its documentation puts the noise at typically less than 10% of an estimate's standard error. Tract estimates still rest on modest numbers of women, and the staged file carries no standard errors, so a single tract is a modeled estimate with an unknown error. Nothing is clipped, so 451 of the 71,646 tracts with an estimate for all women have a negative value.

Tract comparisons weight each tract by its 2010 census population, the nearest available stand-in for the number of women, because the staged file has no counts of women. That weight counts adults and children alike. Intervals come from a bootstrap that resamples whole counties, or whole states where a quantity is built from county or regional means. Of the 73,278 tracts in the file, 71,303 have an estimate for all women, a deprivation rank (described below) and a recorded 2010 population, and they hold 99.0% of the 2010 U.S. population. The Atlas defines its race groups as Hispanic women of any race and non-Hispanic white, Black and Asian women, and the chapter uses those groups.[2]

Predicted shares are higher in the South than in any other region

Across the 3,125 counties of the states and the District of Columbia that have an Atlas estimate, the population-weighted mean predicted share is 28.5% (95% CI 26.4% to 30.8%), and county values run from 16.0% at the population-weighted 5th percentile to 41.4% at the 95th (Figure 1). Pooled over its counties, the South's share is 33.5% (95% CI 31.4% to 35.6%), against 29.5% (95% CI 26.3% to 31.5%) in the Midwest, 25.0% (95% CI 23.5% to 29.2%) in the West and 21.7% (95% CI 19.7% to 23.0%) in the Northeast. The South is higher than the Midwest by 4.0 (95% CI 1.2 to 7.6) points, than the West by 8.5 (95% CI 4.1 to 11.1) and than the Northeast by 11.8 (95% CI 9.3 to 14.6).

Of the counties in the highest tenth of county values, 93% are in the South, which holds 45% of all counties. The key of the map ends at about the 5th and 95th percentiles of the county values, so 523 of the 3,126 drawn counties lie outside it and take the color of its nearest end.

The Atlas's county mean is 3.6 (95% CI 3.2 to 3.9) points above the mean of the tract estimates in the same counties, which is 25.0% (95% CI 24.3% to 25.6%) for all women when each tract is weighted by its 2010 population. One likely source is the tract weights, since total population counts adults and children alike and the Atlas's own estimates count the cohort's children. The levels from tract estimates in this chapter, including the shares in the most and least deprived tenths, may therefore be low. Differences between groups are less sensitive to the weights: counting each tract once, which changes them most, gives a Black-white gap of 17.9 (95% CI 17.4 to 18.5) points against 17.6 with population weights. A county average also mixes neighborhoods that differ widely, so the rest of the chapter works with tracts and, at the end, with county averages of tracts.

Figure 1

Predicted teen birth shares are higher in the South than in any other region, 33.5% against 21.7% in the Northeast

Predicted share of women with a teen birth, percent, by county of childhood, women born 1978 to 1983 whose parents were at the 25th income percentile (teen births in the 1990s and early 2000s, not a current rate), races pooled

Loading county values

Predicted share of women with a teen birth (percent)

Lower predicted shareHigher predicted share

Values outside 16 to 42 take the end colors.

No data (3,143 counties)

Select a class to show only those places.

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Hover or tap a county for its value, or search by name. Zoom with the buttons on the map, then drag to move it.

Counties toward the high end of the key cluster in the South, and the 17 gray counties have no estimate. The map plots each county's Atlas estimate; the South region's pooled share is 33.5% and the Northeast's is 21.7%.Note: Each gray county has the reason for its missing value in its tooltip. Puerto Rico has estimates in the Atlas but is not drawn.Note: The county estimates are model-based and carry privacy noise, so single small counties are noisy. The Atlas lists Connecticut under its legacy counties, which are the eight drawn here, and Valdez-Cordova Census Area (split in 2019) is drawn as its two successors with the same value. Alaska is drawn.Note: The estimates describe where women born in 1978 to 1983 grew up, not the counties today. Regional means are population-weighted over the counties of the states and the District of Columbia, with 95% intervals from a bootstrap over states.Note: The key runs from about the 5th to the 95th percentile of county values, weighted by population, so 523 of the 3,126 drawn counties lie outside it and take the color of its nearest end.Source: Opportunity Atlas county outcomes, 1978-1983 birth cohorts; modeled estimates, regional means population-weighted (2010 census population)

Deprivation here is the Area Deprivation Index (ADI), a national rank built for census block groups from American Community Survey measures of income, education, employment and housing.[3] A 2020 tract's value is the unweighted mean of its block groups' ranks and describes neighborhoods in 2019 to 2023, while the Atlas follows women from 2010 tracts whose teen births took place a generation earlier. Each 2010 tract therefore takes the land-area-weighted mean of the values of the 2020 tracts that overlap it, when those with a rank cover at least 50% of its land area, which leaves 343 tracts with an estimate but no rank or no recorded 2010 population. Of the tracts that remain, 56.4% overlap exactly one 2020 tract, where the crosswalk adds no further averaging.

The time gap changes what the gradient means. It compares the tract a woman grew up in with that tract's conditions now, and it matches the childhood tract only to the extent that neighborhoods keep their standing. The predicted share and the ADI rank have a correlation of +0.58 (95% CI 0.55 to 0.60) across the 71,303 tracts, and the share rises by 2.5 (95% CI 2.4 to 2.7) points for each ten-rank step in the ADI. In tenths of tracts, the mean rises at every step, from 12.9% (95% CI 11.9% to 14.0%) in the least deprived tenth to 38.5% (95% CI 37.8% to 39.3%) in the most deprived, a rise of 25.6 (95% CI 24.3 to 26.9) points (Figure 2). The mean over all tracts is 25.0% (95% CI 24.3% to 25.6%), and counting each tract once gives 25.5% (95% CI 24.7% to 26.2%).

Figure 2

Predicted teen birth shares rise from 12.9% in the least deprived tenth of tracts to 38.5% in the most deprived

Predicted share of women with a teen birth (percent) against the Area Deprivation Index national rank, one dot per 2010 tract, women born 1978 to 1983 whose parents were at the 25th income percentile (teen births in the 1990s and early 2000s, not a current rate), races pooled

Loading data

Dots drift upward from left to right and the tenth-of-tracts means rise at every step, though the dots within any tenth are spread widely. Dots are a random sample of 5,000 of the 71,303 tracts, and 16 tracts fall outside the plotted range; markers are population-weighted means for tenths of tracts with 95% intervals from a bootstrap over counties.Note: The dots are a random sample of 5,000 tracts inside the plotted range (seed 12345); every estimate uses all 71,303 tracts. The spread of the dots includes sampling noise and privacy noise in each tract estimate.Note: The Area Deprivation Index is built for census block groups from American Community Survey measures for 2019 to 2023, and a 2020 tract's value is the unweighted mean of its block groups' ranks. Each 2010 tract takes the land-area-weighted mean of the values of the 2020 tracts that overlap it, when those with a rank cover at least 50% of its land area. Tenths hold near-equal numbers of tracts, with tied ranks kept together.Note: Shares are the Atlas's predicted share of women with a teen birth, a child born when the mother was between the ages of 13 and 19 whom she claimed as a dependent, for women born in 1978 to 1983 whose parents were at the 25th income percentile. White, Black and Asian women are non-Hispanic and Hispanic women may be of any race. The Atlas adds noise to its estimates to protect privacy and the staged values are never clipped, so a few fall below 0 or above 100.Source: Opportunity Atlas tract outcomes, 2010 tracts, 1978-1983 birth cohorts, and Area Deprivation Index, 2023 release (ACS 2019-2023); population-weighted (2010 tract population), modeled estimates

Three checks bear on the time gap. First, the correlation with the ADI is +0.56 (95% CI 0.53 to 0.59) among tracts that overlap one 2020 tract and +0.60 (95% CI 0.57 to 0.62) among tracts that overlap several, so the averaging in the crosswalk does not produce it. Second, the predicted share also has a correlation of −0.72 (95% CI −0.74 to −0.71) with women's mean adult household income rank in the same tracts, which the Atlas measures for the same cohort and which Chapter 3.3, Race, income and mobility takes up. That relation is larger in size than the one with the ADI, so teen births and the later outcomes of the same women move together more closely than teen births and present-day deprivation do. Both are patterns across places, and neither says that a teen birth lowered any woman's income.

Third, a deprivation measure from the childhood years allows a direct check. The Atlas's own tract covariates include the poverty rate from the 1990 census, when the women were in middle childhood. In the 71,295 tracts that have it, tenths of the 1990 poverty rate give a rise in the predicted share of 24.1 (95% CI 22.7 to 25.5) points from the least to the most deprived tenth, against 25.6 (95% CI 24.3 to 26.9) for tenths of the ADI on the same tracts, a difference of −1.5 (95% CI −2.8 to −0.2) points. The correlation with the poverty rate is +0.53 (95% CI 0.51 to 0.55), against +0.58 (95% CI 0.55 to 0.60) with the ADI. A measure taken when the women were children gives a gradient of nearly the same size, a little smaller than the ADI's, so the gradient does not depend on the ADI being measured later.

The pooled estimate mixes groups, and Figure 3 separates them. Each group is drawn in the tracts where the Atlas has enough women of that group to estimate, and the mean predicted share over those tracts is 41.3% (95% CI 40.4% to 42.1%) for Black women, 31.0% (95% CI 29.8% to 32.3%) for Hispanic women, 20.0% (95% CI 19.3% to 20.7%) for white women and 7.4% (95% CI 6.5% to 8.7%) for Asian women. Every group's share is higher in the most deprived tenth of tracts than in the least deprived. The rise is 21.7 (95% CI 20.7 to 22.8) points for white women, 18.1 (95% CI 16.9 to 19.9) for Black women, 20.3 (95% CI 18.1 to 22.2) for Hispanic women and 15.8 (95% CI 11.3 to 20.1) for Asian women, whose interval is wide because few tracts with an Asian estimate lie in the most deprived tenths. Black women's line is above the others at every tenth, followed by Hispanic, white and Asian women's.

Figure 3

Every group's predicted teen birth share is higher in the most deprived tenth of tracts than in the least deprived

Predicted share of women with a teen birth (percent) by tenth of the Area Deprivation Index, tracts where each group is estimated, women born 1978 to 1983 whose parents were at the 25th income percentile (teen births in the 1990s and early 2000s, not a current rate)

Predicted share of women with a teen birth (percent)

Show data

Data for Every group's predicted teen birth share is higher in the most deprived tenth of tracts than in the least deprived
conf_high	conf_low	decile	estimate	n	series
14.01	11.85	1	12.95	7,103	All women
19.34	16.06	2	17.73	7,114	All women
21.14	18.97	3	20.03	7,106	All women
23.01	21.62	4	22.31	7,130	All women
25.17	23.94	5	24.55	7,123	All women
27.15	25.90	6	26.54	7,147	All women
29.25	28.03	7	28.65	7,144	All women
31.26	29.92	8	30.57	7,164	All women
33.37	32.12	9	32.75	7,046	All women
39.27	37.79	10	38.54	7,226	All women
9.55	7.69	1	8.58	6,277	White women
13.73	11.95	2	12.90	6,120	White women
16.07	14.69	3	15.37	6,456	White women
18.76	17.37	4	18.05	6,755	White women
20.77	19.49	5	20.11	6,806	White women
22.46	21.29	6	21.88	6,805	White women
24.40	23.41	7	23.89	6,756	White women
26.14	25.11	8	25.61	6,720	White women
27.76	26.86	9	27.31	6,554	White women
30.83	29.81	10	30.32	5,725	White women
32.41	29.79	1	31.41	1,110	Black women
35.83	30.70	2	33.39	1,951	Black women
36.72	33.53	3	35.19	2,076	Black women
38.43	36.06	4	37.23	2,214	Black women
40.76	38.98	5	39.86	2,533	Black women
42.40	40.31	6	41.35	2,630	Black women
44.29	42.37	7	43.32	2,736	Black women
45.57	44.07	8	44.82	2,747	Black women
47.29	46.16	9	46.72	2,927	Black women
50.14	48.95	10	49.53	4,292	Black women
24.36	20.80	1	22.41	3,548	Hispanic women
26.47	23.48	2	25.25	3,718	Hispanic women
29.43	26.60	3	28.10	3,338	Hispanic women
32.17	29.36	4	30.75	3,032	Hispanic women
33.90	31.20	5	32.51	2,710	Hispanic women
35.45	32.76	6	34.12	2,352	Hispanic women
37.19	34.82	7	35.96	2,089	Hispanic women
39.20	36.94	8	38.06	1,818	Hispanic women
40.45	38.59	9	39.50	1,553	Hispanic women
43.69	41.70	10	42.69	1,627	Hispanic women
5.28	3.65	1	4.43	2,509	Asian women
7.15	5.03	2	5.99	1,778	Asian women
8.06	5.73	3	6.90	1,087	Asian women
10.08	7.03	4	8.46	761	Asian women
14.26	8.81	5	11.40	533	Asian women
15.51	9.42	6	12.18	393	Asian women
17.45	10.13	7	12.99	273	Asian women
19.74	10.30	8	13.95	174	Asian women
25.62	16.66	9	20.67	122	Asian women
24.51	15.73	10	20.21	88	Asian women

Every line ends higher at the most deprived tenth than it starts at the least deprived, and Black women's line sits above Hispanic women's, white women's and Asian women's at every tenth. Each line is the population-weighted mean for the tracts in which the Atlas estimates that group, with 95% intervals from a bootstrap over counties.Note: Each group has its own set of tracts, the tracts where the Atlas has enough women of that group, so the lines differ in part because the places differ. Tenths are tenths of all tracts with an ADI rank, so a tenth means the same part of the deprivation scale for every group. Few tracts with an Asian estimate fall in the most deprived tenths, and their intervals are wide.Note: The Area Deprivation Index is built for census block groups from American Community Survey measures for 2019 to 2023, and a 2020 tract's value is the unweighted mean of its block groups' ranks. Each 2010 tract takes the land-area-weighted mean of the values of the 2020 tracts that overlap it, when those with a rank cover at least 50% of its land area. Tenths hold near-equal numbers of tracts, with tied ranks kept together.Note: Shares are the Atlas's predicted share of women with a teen birth, a child born when the mother was between the ages of 13 and 19 whom she claimed as a dependent, for women born in 1978 to 1983 whose parents were at the 25th income percentile. White, Black and Asian women are non-Hispanic and Hispanic women may be of any race. The Atlas adds noise to its estimates to protect privacy and the staged values are never clipped, so a few fall below 0 or above 100.Source: Opportunity Atlas tract outcomes, 2010 tracts, 1978-1983 birth cohorts, and Area Deprivation Index, 2023 release (ACS 2019-2023); population-weighted (2010 tract population), modeled estimates

The pooled gradient is steeper than each group's own. The rise for all women exceeds the rise for white women by 3.9 (95% CI 2.3 to 5.2) points, for Hispanic women by 5.3 (95% CI 3.7 to 7.1), for Black women by 7.5 (95% CI 6.0 to 8.9) and for Asian women by 9.8 (95% CI 5.4 to 14.4). Tracts with a Black estimate are concentrated in the more deprived tenths, with 4,292 tracts in the most deprived tenth against 1,110 in the least deprived. A tract's pooled estimate averages over its women, so a group mix that differs across the scale would change the slope of the pooled line. The data do not size how much of the pooled gradient comes from that mix.

Black, Hispanic and Asian women raised in the same tract as white women

A comparison inside one tract removes the differences between neighborhoods that a county or ZIP code average mixes in. It needs both groups' estimates in a tract, and the Atlas makes an estimate for a group only where it can measure enough women of that group, so these tracts are not a sample of all tracts. In the 20,884 tracts with an estimate for Black and for white women, which hold 99.6 million people, Black women's predicted share averages 40.9% (95% CI 40.1% to 41.7%) against 23.3% (95% CI 22.6% to 24.0%) for white women, a gap of 17.6 (95% CI 17.0 to 18.2) points. Counting each tract once gives 17.9 (95% CI 17.4 to 18.5), and the Black share is higher than the white share in 89.6% (95% CI 88.9% to 90.2%) of the tracts.

Each tract estimate rests on a modest number of women, and the Atlas adds noise to protect privacy. Noise of that kind spreads the two groups' estimates in both directions, so it pulls the share of tracts with a higher Black estimate toward an even split and not away from one.

Hispanic women's predicted share is higher than white women's by 10.9 (95% CI 10.3 to 11.5) points across 22,695 tracts that hold 114.3 million people, and it is higher in 79.1% (95% CI 77.9% to 80.2%) of them. Counting each tract once gives a gap of 11.2 (95% CI 10.6 to 11.8) points. Asian women's share is lower than white women's by 7.1 (95% CI 6.3 to 8.0) points across 7,064 tracts that hold 37.9 million people, and it is higher than white women's in 23.9% (95% CI 21.6% to 26.0%) of them (Figure 4). Each comparison uses its own set of tracts, so the three gaps are not measured on one sample. The same comparison for adult income is in Chapter 3.3, Race, income and mobility, and for incarceration in Chapter 3.1, School discipline and incarceration.

Figure 4

Black women's predicted teen birth share was 17.6 points above white women's in the same tracts, Hispanic women's 10.9 points above and Asian women's 7.1 points below

Mean predicted share of women with a teen birth for each group minus the share for white women raised in the same tract, percentage points, tracts where both are estimated, women born 1978 to 1983 whose parents were at the 25th income percentile (teen births in the 1990s and early 2000s, not a current rate)

Group's predicted share minus white women's share, same tracts (percentage points)

Show data

Data for Black women's predicted teen birth share was 17.6 points above white women's in the same tracts, Hispanic women's 10.9 points above and Asian women's 7.1 points below
conf_high	conf_low	estimate	group	n
18.19	17.01	17.59	Black women	20,884
11.50	10.31	10.92	Hispanic women	22,695
−6.31	−7.96	−7.11	Asian women	7,064

Black women's dot lies furthest right, Hispanic women's to its left and Asian women's left of zero, and none of the three intervals reaches zero. Each dot is a population-weighted mean over the tracts where the group and white women are both estimated, with a 95% interval from a bootstrap over counties.Note: Each row uses its own set of tracts, the tracts where that group and white women both have an estimate, so the rows are not a single sample. The number of tracts is in each row's tooltip. Each tract estimate rests on a modest number of women and carries privacy noise; the means average many tracts and the intervals resample counties. Shares are the Atlas's predicted share of women with a teen birth, a child born when the mother was between the ages of 13 and 19 whom she claimed as a dependent, for women born in 1978 to 1983 whose parents were at the 25th income percentile. White, Black and Asian women are non-Hispanic and Hispanic women may be of any race. The Atlas adds noise to its estimates to protect privacy and the staged values are never clipped, so a few fall below 0 or above 100.Source: Opportunity Atlas tract outcomes, 2010 tracts, 1978-1983 birth cohorts, and Area Deprivation Index, 2023 release (ACS 2019-2023); population-weighted (2010 tract population), modeled estimates

The Black-white gap shows no detectable change across the deprivation scale

Sorting tracts on one noisy estimate and then plotting a difference that contains it builds a contrast into the groups, because noise in that estimate enters both the sort and the difference. The tenths in Figure 5 are tenths of the ADI, which neither group's estimate contributes to, so the grouping does not sort on either one. In the least deprived tenth the Black-white gap is 18.1 (95% CI 16.2 to 19.6) points, and in the most deprived tenth it is 17.4 (95% CI 16.6 to 18.1) points. The gap in the most deprived tenth minus the gap in the least deprived is −0.7 (95% CI −2.4 to 1.2) points, and the slope of the gap on the ADI rank is −0.1 (95% CI −0.3 to 0.1) points for each ten-rank step. Both intervals include zero, so the data show no detectable change in the gap across the scale. As a ratio the gap does change: since the gap in points shows no detectable change while both levels rise, Black women's share is 2.5 (95% CI 2.3 to 2.9) times white women's in the least deprived tenth and 1.5 (95% CI 1.5 to 1.6) times in the most deprived.

Figure 5

The Black-white gap in predicted teen birth shares shows no detectable change from the least to the most deprived tenth of tracts, −0.7 points with an interval that includes zero

Predicted share of women with a teen birth (percent) for white and Black women raised in the same tracts, by tenth of the Area Deprivation Index, women born 1978 to 1983 whose parents were at the 25th income percentile (teen births in the 1990s and early 2000s, not a current rate)

Non-Hispanic white women
Non-Hispanic Black women

Show data

Data for The Black-white gap in predicted teen birth shares shows no detectable change from the least to the most deprived tenth of tracts, −0.7 points with an interval that includes zero
Tenth of tracts by ADI	White women (%)	Black women (%)	Gap (points)	Lower limit of the 95% interval for the gap	Upper limit of the 95% interval for the gap	Tracts
Tenth 1 (least deprived)	11.7	29.8	18.1	16.2	19.6	696
Tenth 2	14.9	32.6	17.7	16.1	19.2	1,372
Tenth 3	16.7	34.2	17.5	16.3	18.7	1,634
Tenth 4	19.4	36.9	17.5	16.3	18.6	1,953
Tenth 5	21.1	39.5	18.3	17.4	19.3	2,288
Tenth 6	23.0	41.0	18.0	16.9	19.3	2,366
Tenth 7	25.5	43.0	17.5	16.7	18.4	2,443
Tenth 8	27.2	44.4	17.2	16.5	17.9	2,410
Tenth 9	29.4	46.5	17.0	16.4	17.7	2,570
Tenth 10 (most deprived)	32.0	49.4	17.4	16.6	18.1	3,152

Every Black dot lies to the right of the white dot in its row, and the distance between them shows no detectable change from the least to the most deprived tenth. The Black dot in the least deprived tenth sits slightly left of the white dot in the most deprived tenth, in a different set of tracts. Each dot is a population-weighted mean over the tracts in the tenth where both groups are estimated, with 95% intervals from a bootstrap over counties.Note: The tracts are those where the Atlas estimates both groups, and tenths are formed on the ADI, a measure that neither estimate contributes to, so the grouping does not sort on either noisy estimate. Few tracts in the least deprived tenths have a Black estimate. The Area Deprivation Index is built for census block groups from American Community Survey measures for 2019 to 2023, and a 2020 tract's value is the unweighted mean of its block groups' ranks. Each 2010 tract takes the land-area-weighted mean of the values of the 2020 tracts that overlap it, when those with a rank cover at least 50% of its land area. Tenths hold near-equal numbers of tracts, with tied ranks kept together.Note: Shares are the Atlas's predicted share of women with a teen birth, a child born when the mother was between the ages of 13 and 19 whom she claimed as a dependent, for women born in 1978 to 1983 whose parents were at the 25th income percentile. White, Black and Asian women are non-Hispanic and Hispanic women may be of any race. The Atlas adds noise to its estimates to protect privacy and the staged values are never clipped, so a few fall below 0 or above 100.Source: Opportunity Atlas tract outcomes, 2010 tracts, 1978-1983 birth cohorts, and Area Deprivation Index, 2023 release (ACS 2019-2023); population-weighted (2010 tract population), modeled estimates

For Hispanic women the gap is 11.5 (95% CI 10.4 to 12.7) points in the least deprived tenth and 10.7 (95% CI 9.7 to 11.7) in the most deprived, a change of −0.8 (95% CI −2.4 to 0.7) points that also includes zero, and the Hispanic ratio falls from 2.1 (95% CI 2.0 to 2.3) to 1.3 (95% CI 1.3 to 1.4). The Asian-white difference is not constant. It changes by −7.0 (95% CI −12.0 to −2.7) points between the two tenths, so Asian women's shortfall is wider in the most deprived tenth, though it rests on far fewer tracts there. The gradient by deprivation and the gap by race therefore appear side by side, and the gap in points shows no detectable narrowing where deprivation is higher. Black women in the least deprived tenth of tracts have a predicted share of 29.8% (95% CI 28.0% to 31.1%), slightly below the 32.0% (95% CI 31.4% to 32.7%) of white women in the most deprived tenth, whose tracts are different ones, and the difference between them is −2.3 (95% CI −4.2 to −0.8) points.

The gap in county averages is similar under every floor on tracts

A county average damps the noise in a pair of tract estimates. Among the 261 counties with at least 20 tracts that have both estimates, the Black-white gap in county means is 18.1 (95% CI 16.8 to 19.6) points, weighting each county by its population and resampling states, and it is positive in every one of those counties (Figure 6). Across counties, Black women's mean share rises 0.85 (95% CI 0.70 to 1.00) points for each point of white women's share. In the tracts of those counties the slope is 0.41 (95% CI 0.35 to 0.46) across tracts and 0.26 (95% CI 0.23 to 0.29) within counties, after each county's means are subtracted from both shares. The lower tract slopes are consistent with noise in a tract's white estimate, which pulls a slope toward zero, and with differences in structure within and between counties; the data do not separate the two. The figure therefore averages tracts to counties before it compares them, and a line of tract means grouped on the white estimate would mix the two.

Figure 6

Across counties, Black women's predicted teen birth share rises 0.85 points for each point of white women's, against 0.26 among tracts within the same counties

Mean predicted share of women with a teen birth (percent) for Black women against white women, counties with at least a minimum number of tracts where both are estimated, women born 1978 to 1983 whose parents were at the 25th income percentile (teen births in the 1990s and early 2000s, not a current rate)

Show data

Data for Across counties, Black women's predicted teen birth share rises 0.85 points for each point of white women's, against 0.26 among tracts within the same counties
black	n	white
46.15	20	30.63
40.49	102	22.94
41.06	20	26.32
45.02	44	26.40
46.42	78	26.99
47.88	46	25.45
50.53	20	35.96
45.79	32	24.85
27.30	29	21.66
44.50	159	28.23
35.43	26	24.18
42.55	75	23.05
33.35	132	16.09
37.31	74	17.54
45.77	52	25.11
53.95	44	27.91
37.25	385	16.12
31.84	28	19.12
38.81	123	19.37
40.99	161	20.13
41.05	231	22.79
32.24	173	15.74
39.46	52	20.60
31.13	60	17.42
35.47	72	20.29
36.01	66	19.74
40.34	43	23.57
39.39	62	24.88
31.71	60	16.42
32.68	65	16.93
36.42	66	15.75
36.21	20	22.77
45.14	27	26.23
38.53	78	23.58
47.08	27	25.17
40.28	34	18.67
39.62	21	28.46
37.33	53	23.28
28.10	221	15.23
43.61	133	25.87
44.73	57	25.71
40.62	151	24.78
38.95	20	24.17
37.99	28	26.15
35.29	48	17.81
46.57	29	26.17
33.82	139	16.23
39.16	23	24.51
34.45	126	20.97
33.43	20	21.45
32.33	132	18.17
49.60	50	21.91
49.99	69	30.88
34.66	29	21.80
34.95	51	18.72
38.25	38	23.95
47.51	33	29.74
42.70	42	30.11
47.90	22	19.28
42.60	45	29.42
36.20	95	20.96
37.53	83	17.92
45.96	22	27.45
37.80	70	17.97
33.29	101	17.40
40.21	25	26.42
42.70	23	26.18
46.90	20	28.80
41.88	40	30.43
43.76	40	29.55
47.81	21	21.12
46.73	286	15.50
38.08	45	12.72
55.83	41	29.78
49.06	31	25.64
56.68	20	37.76
45.46	24	26.33
52.94	28	28.40
43.44	35	23.96
47.51	25	31
44.21	45	20.65
60.46	39	26.72
47.07	35	30.59
47.64	38	26.48
48.05	138	28.68
49.49	38	27.54
44.74	24	25.68
50.25	46	29.15
40.02	25	26.73
46.97	38	35.44
41.04	39	28.05
43.81	96	26.78
45.23	22	28.54
46.39	50	27.14
49.44	24	30.59
43.70	64	21.41
47.46	67	24.39
43.91	34	22.75
45.24	64	20.41
49.49	25	23.97
50.47	20	30.11
41.02	23	23.60
53.53	20	24.80
39.03	62	20.67
39.15	100	17.40
33.73	27	20.50
38.25	21	24.19
30	33	13.76
23.98	131	13.06
30.62	142	22.39
49.07	77	19.06
39.48	28	22.98
17.71	49	12.76
25.21	40	15.64
34.24	24	19.61
44.81	38	24.88
41.90	34	24.58
47.57	26	23.85
51.75	51	26.84
40.92	27	17.91
34.09	68	13.42
45.57	24	24.56
35.91	43	15.04
43.17	131	23.03
42.51	110	16.44
46.09	47	21.71
47.36	29	30.23
44.57	38	30.95
45.83	41	21.96
43.70	22	29.84
46.04	89	26.15
42.22	91	22.08
52.57	51	23.70
44.70	50	26.62
47.91	195	26.58
45.27	26	20.96
24.20	26	9.26
35.04	55	17.71
39.40	59	16.57
51.33	22	25.34
31.16	46	6.49
43.82	31	16.39
35.70	28	12.80
39.86	39	15.82
26.57	75	9.31
34.66	33	16.12
37.91	25	14.58
31.76	53	8.77
32.90	43	10.90
29.52	21	21.29
46.72	35	22.33
26.25	80	4.42
41.72	73	19.85
25.16	55	9.01
27.88	37	8.96
48.34	36	20.75
37.91	26	17.09
23.31	57	7.65
40.22	27	10.32
22.94	22	7.61
36.34	60	12.13
27.48	72	10.96
40.32	22	30.82
51.58	22	26.49
39.80	60	27.58
36.32	43	18.20
42.99	52	24.26
52.23	32	34.29
39.08	74	23.76
43.86	22	25.33
40.91	135	22.11
39.03	22	21.01
38.74	23	24.25
47.45	28	22.05
46.47	22	35.09
53.96	20	29.02
37.49	107	16.90
41.96	24	25.02
41.80	26	25.73
42.49	136	18.58
42.72	158	29.84
49.28	111	26.60
49.88	28	30.80
47.77	60	28.92
49.23	22	24.70
45.20	61	27.53
45.63	38	27.95
44.90	54	23.04
43.43	22	29.30
45.08	118	26.95
44.82	69	25.26
40.48	41	20.79
42.74	104	17.44
47.77	22	25.45
43.95	23	16.94
33.72	22	18.30
42.83	32	23.16
41.01	43	16.88
52.12	20	26.16
41.27	20	23.62
33.39	47	12.61
44.78	117	18.59
32.48	38	22.29
43.07	28	26.81
48.45	32	33.85
39.49	34	28
38.03	58	19.37
38.79	23	27.03
39.41	29	24.35
45.21	78	22.28
42.83	33	24.60
37.70	36	23.75
40.15	61	20.29
49.22	51	30.54
43.68	21	27.47
48.39	31	29.91
42.36	108	28.79
45.65	45	28.07
45.23	42	27.66
47.27	20	29.81
41	33	28.39
44.09	33	31.13
45.26	136	27.07
40.68	49	28.96
37.09	120	22.18
37.15	27	28.42
51.38	20	25.20
34.29	50	16.60
44.31	341	27.80
42.70	39	25.26
32.49	34	23.04
33.41	53	19.24
36.49	44	27.01
44.89	23	30.05
38.59	417	23.46
45.03	39	29.08
49.41	30	30.55
44.64	31	31.45
40.88	29	27.61
43.27	193	26.07
41.50	83	26.44
41.40	22	30.80
35.42	23	18.48
32.41	56	20.45
24.38	123	12.39
34.92	43	19.47
32.86	54	22.53
40.44	21	26.07
28.47	26	15.87
35.37	37	23.06
39.96	30	24.43
37.68	38	25.08
43.53	47	26.48
43.70	28	23.03
40.88	21	27.28
33.59	80	21.13
32.44	114	18.64
38.83	75	25.30
51.85	28	19.82
51.01	99	24.71
58.29	24	29.58

Every dot lies above the diagonal, which marks equal shares, and the markers rise at close to the slope of the diagonal. Each dot is one county; markers are population-weighted means of Black women's share in tenths of counties ranked by their mean white share, with 95% intervals from a bootstrap over states.Note: A county enters when at least 20 of its tracts have both estimates, and county means weight each tract by its 2010 population. In the tracts of these counties the slope is 0.41 across tracts and 0.26 within counties (each tract's shares minus its county's means), against 0.85 between county means. Noise in the white estimate is one candidate explanation for the lower tract slopes, and the data do not separate it from structure within and between counties. Shares are the Atlas's predicted share of women with a teen birth, a child born when the mother was between the ages of 13 and 19 whom she claimed as a dependent, for women born in 1978 to 1983 whose parents were at the 25th income percentile. White, Black and Asian women are non-Hispanic and Hispanic women may be of any race. The Atlas adds noise to its estimates to protect privacy and the staged values are never clipped, so a few fall below 0 or above 100.Source: Opportunity Atlas tract outcomes, 2010 tracts, 1978-1983 birth cohorts, and Area Deprivation Index, 2023 release (ACS 2019-2023); population-weighted (2010 tract population), modeled estimates

The county number depends on the floor on tracts. With every county that has a tract pair the gap is 17.6 (95% CI 16.5 to 19.0) points, and it is positive in 94.6% of those counties; with a floor of 10 tracts (453 counties) it is positive in every county, and with a floor of 50 tracts the gap is 18.1 (95% CI 17.0 to 19.7) points. A floor on the population of a tract moves the tract gap little: it is 17.6 (95% CI 17.0 to 18.2) points for tracts of at least 2,000 residents, 17.3 (95% CI 16.7 to 17.9) for 4,000 and 16.5 (95% CI 15.8 to 17.2) for 6,000. Counting each tract once, which gives the smallest and noisiest tracts more weight, gives 17.9 (95% CI 17.4 to 18.5) points against 17.6 (95% CI 17.0 to 18.2) with population weights, so noise in small tracts does not move the gap. Under all nine settings the interval for the gap lies above zero (Figure 7), and the two extreme settings, tracts of at least 6,000 residents and counties with at least 50 tracts, have overlapping intervals.

Figure 7

The Black-white gap in predicted teen birth shares has an interval above zero under all nine floors on tracts per county and on tract population

Mean predicted share of women with a teen birth for Black women minus white women raised in the same places, percentage points, by floor, women born 1978 to 1983 whose parents were at the 25th income percentile (teen births in the 1990s and early 2000s, not a current rate)

Minimum tracts per county
Minimum residents per tract

Black women's predicted share minus white women's (percentage points)

Show data

Data for The Black-white gap in predicted teen birth shares has an interval above zero under all nine floors on tracts per county and on tract population
conf_high	conf_low	estimate	floor	kind	n
18.98	16.54	17.59	Every county with a tract pair	Minimum tracts per county	1,318
18.98	16.66	17.74	Counties with at least 5 tracts	Minimum tracts per county	719
19.20	16.70	17.86	Counties with at least 10 tracts	Minimum tracts per county	453
19.59	16.84	18.06	Counties with at least 20 tracts	Minimum tracts per county	261
19.67	16.96	18.14	Counties with at least 50 tracts	Minimum tracts per county	102
18.19	17.01	17.59	Every tract	Minimum residents per tract	20,884
18.18	17.03	17.57	Tracts with at least 2,000 residents	Minimum residents per tract	19,836
17.94	16.69	17.27	Tracts with at least 4,000 residents	Minimum residents per tract	12,788
17.21	15.78	16.50	Tracts with at least 6,000 residents	Minimum residents per tract	4,790

All nine intervals lie above zero and the dots lie close together, so the gap does not close under any floor. The upper five rows raise the minimum number of tracts with both estimates that a county needs; the lower four raise the minimum 2010 population of a tract.Note: County rows weight each tract by its 2010 population within the county and each county by its summed population, with intervals from a bootstrap over states. Tract rows weight each tract by its 2010 population, with intervals from a bootstrap over counties. The number of counties or tracts is in each row's tooltip. Shares are the Atlas's predicted share of women with a teen birth, a child born when the mother was between the ages of 13 and 19 whom she claimed as a dependent, for women born in 1978 to 1983 whose parents were at the 25th income percentile. White, Black and Asian women are non-Hispanic and Hispanic women may be of any race. The Atlas adds noise to its estimates to protect privacy and the staged values are never clipped, so a few fall below 0 or above 100.Source: Opportunity Atlas tract outcomes, 2010 tracts, 1978-1983 birth cohorts, and Area Deprivation Index, 2023 release (ACS 2019-2023); population-weighted (2010 tract population), modeled estimates

Evidence on whether contraceptive access changes teen birth rates

Everything above describes shares across places and groups. Whether a change in access to contraception changes teen births is a separate question, and one study with a stated identification strategy bears on it.

Causal evidenceDifference-in-differences

Whether expanding access to long-acting contraception changes teen birth rates

The Colorado Family Planning Initiative began in 2009 with private funding to help low-income women gain access to long-acting reversible contraception, such as intrauterine devices and implants, through the state's Title X family-planning clinics. Teen birth rates fell across the United States in the same years, so the fall in Colorado alone does not show what the program did. Lindo and Packham compared the change in teen birth rates in Colorado counties that had a Title X clinic with the change in counties that had a Title X clinic in other states, before and after the program began.[4] The design assumes that the proportional changes in the comparison counties show what would have happened in Colorado without the program.

They estimate that the program reduced the teen birth rate in counties with funded clinics by 6.4% over 5 years, with the reduction concentrated in the second through fifth years and in counties with higher poverty. A state-level synthetic control analysis points the same way but lacks statistical power. The estimate is for teenagers in counties with a clinic in the years around 2009. It does not describe the women born in 1978 to 1983 whose teen births this chapter predicts, and it does not test whether access to contraception accounts for any gap between groups or places shown above.

What these data cannot show

The shares are model predictions for women born in 1978 to 1983 whose parents were at the 25th income percentile, so they describe teen births in the 1990s and early 2000s among women from low-income families and say nothing about women from richer families or about teenagers now. A birth counts only when the mother claimed the child as a dependent. The gradient is a pattern across tracts, an ecological pattern, and it does not say that living in a deprived tract raised any woman's chance of a teen birth. The ADI describes the tracts decades after the births, and the staged files hold no deprivation measure from the childhood years.

A same-tract comparison removes differences between neighborhoods but not all differences. Within a tract, women raised at one parental income percentile can still differ in family wealth, in schools, in the block they lived on and in how institutions treated them, and the data describe the gap without explaining it. The staged file has no standard errors and no counts of women, so tracts are weighted by their total 2010 population, which may put the levels too low, and the tracts with both estimates are those with enough women of both groups. Asian estimates are low and noisy: 20% of them are below zero.

Whether a teen birth changes a woman's later income is a separate question that this chapter does not test. Kearney and Levine reviewed state and international comparisons and argue that early births mostly mark limited economic prospects for disadvantaged girls and carry little direct economic cost, which is a reading of patterns across places.[5] Puerto Rico has Atlas estimates but is not drawn on the map. Connecticut appears under its legacy county codes in the Atlas, and it takes its ADI rank from the 2020 planning-region tracts through the crosswalk.

Data sources

Opportunity AtlasPredicted share of women with a teen birth (parents at the 25th income percentile) by tract and race and by county, children born 1978 to 1983, native 2010 tracts; women's adult household income rank; 1990 tract poverty rate from the tract covariates fileYears: 1978-1983 birth cohorts (2018 release) · Weights: 2010 census tract population for tract comparisons; 2010 census county population for county summaries · License: Public use (Opportunity Insights and the U.S. Census Bureau)
Area Deprivation IndexNeighborhood Atlas Area Deprivation Index, 2023 release, national rank, 2020 tracts averaged onto 2010 tracts by land areaYears: 2023 release (version 4.0.1; built on ACS 2019-2023) · Weights: 2010 census tract population · License: Free for non-commercial use; cite the Neighborhood Atlas and Kind and Buckingham
USDA Food Access Research Atlas2010 census population of each 2010 tract, from the Food Access Research Atlas file; the food-access flags are not usedYears: 2019 release (population from the 2010 census) · Weights: none (census counts); used as the weight for tract and county comparisons · License: Public domain (U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service)
CDC WONDER natalityNamed only, to say how this chapter's measure differs from CDC WONDER counts of births to teenage mothers in the chapter on recent birthsYears: 2018-2024 · Weights: none (not used in this chapter's estimates) · License: Public domain (NCHS, CDC); WONDER data-use restrictions apply
Published estimates from cited studiesThe estimate of the Colorado Family Planning Initiative reported by Lindo and Packham (2017)Years: as reported in each study · Weights: none (reported estimate) · License: Quoted from published research for commentary

All data sources

Methods

The teen birth measure is the Opportunity Atlas's predicted share of women who ever claimed, as a dependent, a child born when they were between the ages of 13 and 19, for women born in 1978 to 1983 whose parents were at the 25th percentile of the national income distribution, so it is a model prediction that describes teen births in the 1990s and early 2000s. Neighborhoods are ranked by the Area Deprivation Index for 2019 to 2023, decades after the births. Tracts are weighted by their 2010 census population because the Atlas has no counts of women, and the Atlas adds privacy noise to every estimate.

What the teen birth measure is and which tracts it covers

The staged tract file has one value for all women and one for each of white, Black, Hispanic and Asian women, on native 2010 tracts (73,278 tracts in the file). The Atlas adds privacy noise to every estimate and the values are never clipped. A tract enters a comparison when the estimates exist, its 2010 population is positive and it has a deprivation rank.

Figures explained here: Figure 2, Figure 3 and Figure 4

How deprivation and its tenths are defined

Deprivation is the Area Deprivation Index national rank, a block-group index (ACS 2019 to 2023) whose 2020-tract value is the unweighted mean of its block groups' ranks; a 2010 tract takes the land-area-weighted mean of the values of the 2020 tracts that overlap it, when those with a rank cover at least half of its land area.

Tenths are tenths of all 71,642 tracts in the file with a rank and a positive population (near-equal numbers; tied ranks stay together), whether or not they have an Atlas estimate, so a tenth means the same part of the scale for every group. A sensitivity check ranks tracts by the 1990 census poverty rate in the Opportunity Atlas tract covariates file (a raw file read once in the build) in place of the ADI.

Figures explained here: Figure 2, Figure 3 and Figure 5

How tracts are weighted and which tracts each comparison uses

Each tract is weighted by its 2010 census population, read from the USDA Food Access Research Atlas file (the Atlas has no counts of women); counting each tract once gives similar results.

Sentences about comparisons between groups use the tracts where both groups are estimated.

Figures explained here: Figure 2, Figure 3, Figure 4 and Figure 5

How the county comparisons, regions and map are built

In the county version of the comparison a county enters when at least 20 of its tracts have both estimates, and the floors on tracts per county (1, 5, 10, 20 and 50) and on tract population (2,000, 4,000 and 6,000 residents) are tried in the last figure.

Regions are the Census Bureau's four regions. The county map uses the Atlas's own county estimates for all women.

Figures explained here: Figure 6, Figure 7 and Figure 1

How uncertainty is measured

Intervals are 95% percentile intervals from 2,000 draws of whole counties with replacement (seed 12345), computed by one routine for means, shares, slopes, correlations and differences; quantities built from county means, and the regional means and differences, resample states.

References

Chetty, Raj; Friedman, John N.; Hendren, Nathaniel; Jones, Maggie R.; Porter, Sonya R. (2018). The Opportunity Atlas: Mapping the Childhood Roots of Social Mobility. NBER Working Paper 25147. doi:10.3386/w25147
Chetty, Raj; Hendren, Nathaniel; Jones, Maggie R.; Porter, Sonya R. (2020). Race and Economic Opportunity in the United States: An Intergenerational Perspective. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 135(2): 711-783. doi:10.1093/qje/qjz042
Kind, Amy J. H.; Buckingham, William R. (2018). Making Neighborhood-Disadvantage Metrics Accessible: The Neighborhood Atlas. New England Journal of Medicine 378(26): 2456-2458. doi:10.1056/NEJMp1802313
Lindo, Jason M.; Packham, Analisa (2017). How Much Can Expanding Access to Long-Acting Reversible Contraceptives Reduce Teen Birth Rates?. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 9(3): 348-376. doi:10.1257/pol.20160039
Kearney, Melissa S.; Levine, Phillip B. (2012). Why Is the Teen Birth Rate in the United States So High and Why Does It Matter?. Journal of Economic Perspectives 26(2): 141-163. doi:10.1257/jep.26.2.141

How to cite

@misc{singh2026teenbirths,
  author = {Singh, Vishal},
  title = {Teen births},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://vishalsingh.org/zipcode/teen-births},
  note = {In ZIP Code Destiny. Published 9 October 2026.}
}

How the Atlas measures a teen birth

Predicted shares are higher in the South than in any other region

The share rises with neighborhood deprivation in every tenth of tracts

The share rises across the deprivation scale for every group

Black, Hispanic and Asian women raised in the same tract as white women

The Black-white gap shows no detectable change across the deprivation scale

The gap in county averages is similar under every floor on tracts

Evidence on whether contraceptive access changes teen birth rates

What these data cannot show

Data sources

Methods

What the teen birth measure is and which tracts it covers

How deprivation and its tenths are defined

How tracts are weighted and which tracts each comparison uses

How the county comparisons, regions and map are built

How uncertainty is measured

References

How to cite