Western countries overcoming teen pregnancy rates
Developed countries continue to see an overall downward trend in teenage pregnancy rates, with the United States (US) seeing a particularly large drop.
According to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, around one-third of American girls aged between 13 and 19 fell pregnant in 2006.
However, in 2010, this proportion had already dropped to less than a quarter, with reductions recorded among all racial and ethnic groups in all 50 states. Preliminary data from the US Department of Health and Human Services suggests that levels dropped by a further 22% over the next three years.
Heather Boonstra, Director of Public Policy at the Guttmacher Institute, suggests that the decline may be due to improved sexual health education and greater access to information on health and contraception. She also notes that people are getting married later in developed countries, which is lowering the planned pregnancy rate among teenagers.
Despite these historic lows, pregnancy rates among US teenagers are still much higher than those among their counterparts in other Western countries.
Data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that there are around 29.4 births for every 1,000 women aged 15 to 19 in the US, compared to around 19.7 per 1000 women in the same age range in the UK, and 12.6 across the European Union.
Our author Phillip B. Levine discusses how teenage childbearing affects economic outcomes for women, acknowledging the trend that women who give birth earlier do not tend to perform well in the labor market.
However, he suggests that the childbearing itself may not be the main causal factor, and may simply be a marker of other existing social disadvantages in the girl’s life. To improve employment and economic outcomes for women, Levine advocates improving childhood education and providing greater access to higher education.
Read more here.
Related article:
Teenage childbearing and labor market implications for women, by Phillip B. Levine
Can government policies reverse undesirable declines in fertility? by Elizabeth Brainerd