The situation is normally happily-ever-after for people who choose to make it so. FWIW, I know a pair of couples who started dating in middle school and married

The situation is normally happily-ever-after for people who choose to make it so. FWIW, I know a pair of couples who started dating in middle school and married as soon as legally possible, and they are happy decades later. It helps to have a strong sense of duty and responsibility in your culture. Not that the current economy is bad, because it isn't and many high school dropouts are getting jobs now, but I'm not seeing how that relates to the economic well-being of a full-time mother. The father could be a decade older, settled into a career as a petroleum engineer or stock trader. It's a given that a study of pregnancy age will fail to compensate for factors unrelated to age. The big and obvious one: on average, there is something different about the personality of a person who gets pregnant at that age. (and thus unhealthful choices, etc.) I do not accept any claims to have properly accounted for non-age factors. The ideal age is going to depend on your DNA (when do you reach full size where it counts?) but FWIW that is likely near age 16 for many people.