Parental investment theory was used to identify predictors of nonmarital teen birth rates for Blacks and Whites in U.S. metropolitan areas. Regression models predicted Black teen births, White teen births, and both together using indices of parental investment (male income, unemployment rates, marital opportunity for women) with various controls. White teen births decreased with increased marital opportunity for women, and the same was true of Blacks, although these effects were comparatively small. In the combined model, parental investment measures and the control variables accounted for 70% of the variance in nonmarital teen birth rates. Adding race as a variable did not significantly increase the variance explained, indicating that Black-White differences in nonmarital teen reproduction can be explained by differences in parental investment prospects. Early nonmarital reproduction can be seen as an adaptive response to diminished prospects for parental investment.
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