The Increase of Teenage Pregnancy

An increase in pregnancies in teens is not a new social phenomenon. Historically, women tend to begin giving birth in their teens to early twenties. In the past two decades, female birth rates in the US have actually declined (Polit et al., 1982). In the latter half of the 1950s, 90 out of 1,000 women under the age of 20 gave birth to 1,000 in 1978. There are several factors that are currently attracting attention in teens pregnancy and parent-child relationship. There are so many young women from 13 to 19 years old, so the absolute number of young people is increasing while the birthrate is decreasing.

Teenage pregnancy is an unexpected thing that could potentially ruin the life of a young woman. The teen pregnancy rate continues to rise. This increase is a big problem as teenage mothers and their babies are faced with greater health risks. The birth rate of adolescents (15-17 years old) is rising steadily. Between 1986 and 1991, this ratio increased by 27% (from 30.5 to 38.7 per 1000 females). In 1991, nearly 4 out of 100 girls aged 15 to 17 birth children. About 1 million young people are pregnant each year and more than 530,000 people give birth. Nearly 13% of US newborns in 1991 were young people. Adolescence tends to have poor diet, smoking, drinking and taking medications, which increases the risk of babies having health problems or miscarriage at birth. Teenage mothers are prone to pregnancy complications such as preterm birth, long-term birth, anemia, hypertension, etc.

Teenage pregnancies are mainly defined as social problems in research fields and social institutions. Poverty is associated with rising pregnancy rates in teens. Compared to economically well-off countries such as Switzerland and Japan, in economically disadvantaged countries such as Niger and Bangladesh, the number of teenage mothers is much more. In the UK, about half of all pregnancies under the age of 18 are concentrated in 30% of the poorest and only 14% are in 30% of the poorest. For example, in Italy, the birthrate of young people in the middle of the rich is 3 per 1,000 people, but poor Metso Giorno is 10.0 per 1000 people. Likewise, in the United States, sociologist Mike A. Males points out that teenage birthrate is closely related to California's poverty rate.