Describe the problems associated with teenage pregnancy and childbearing
- Given the high rate of sexual activity and poor record of contraceptive use among contemporary adolescents, it comes as little surprise to learn that many young women become pregnant before the end of adolescence. Each year, more than 600,000 American adolescents between 15 and 19 become pregnant—giving the United States the highest rate of teen pregnancy in the industrialized world
- The rate of unintended pregnancy is far greater among adolescents than adults once age differences in sexual activity are taken into account
- een pregnancy has become less common mainly because of increased contraceptive use (and, especially, long-acting reversible contraception) but also because somewhat fewer younger teenagers are sexually active. Rates of teen pregnancy vary considerably by ethnicity: The rate is nearly three times higher among Black youth, and more than twice as high among Hispanic youth, than among White youth; the rate among Asian-American adolescents is lowest of all
- Adolescents who are ambivalent about childbearing or who believe that having a child will be a positive experience are less likely to use contraception effectively (Unger, Molina, & Teran, 2002; Zabin, Astone, & Emerson, 1993). Thus, while the vast majority of sexually active teenagers do not actively wish to become pregnant, a significant minority feel less troubled by the prospect of early parenthood than do their peers, and these youngsters are more likely to risk pregnancy by having unprotected sex. As one team of authors wrote, "Adolescent childbearing is more an unintended result of risky behaviors than a result of rational choice" (Trent & Crowder, 1997, p. 532). The younger sisters of adolescent mothers may be more likely to become adolescent parents themselves, in part because the older sisters may communicate some acceptance of early motherhood
- A number of studies have focused on the male partners of pregnant adolescents. In general, research indicates that these males share a number of distinguishing characteristics that differentiate them from their peers who have not gotten a teenager pregnant. Most important is the fact that they are relatively more likely to have problems with self-esteem, school, work, aggression, drugs and alcohol, and the law, and to have fathered a child previously
- Rates of teenage childbearing vary markedly across ethnic and socioeconomic groups. Middle-class women are far more likely to abort their pregnancies than are poor women, and as a consequence, the problem of teenage childbearing is densely concentrated among economically disadvantaged youth
- Because teenage childbearing tends to go hand in hand with a variety of other problems—the most critical of which is poverty