by Betsy Shaw posted in Mom Stories
The United States has the highest teen pregnancy rate of any industrialized nation. Ten times higher, according to this Washington Post article, than that of Switzerland.
But the good news is, fewer babies were born to teenage girls, aged 14 to 19, in the U.S. than at any other time since the final years of the second world war.
This U.S. News report explains that the teenage birth rate dropped 9 percent between 2009 and 2010. The 2010 birth rate worked out to be one birth out of every 29 teen girls aged 15 to 19. Does that shock anyone else?
The rate is affected by geography, showing one in every 20 teen girls in many southern states having a child, compared to less than 1 in every 50 in New England states.
The highest rates are still among black and Hispanic teens though that gap seems to be shrinking. What is being referred to as an historically low birth rate, includes all ethnic and racial groups.
While a decline is all well and good and a sign that education and contraception are having some noticeable effect on the teenage birth rate, economists are still trying to figure out why American rates are so high compared to other industrialized nations.
A chart in the Washington Post Wonk Blog illustrates the discrepancy with alarming clarity:
“A teenage girl who grows up in the United States is nine times as likely to give birth as one who grows up in Switzerland and twice as likely as someone who grows up in any of the 19 other industrialized countries in the report. Why? Blame income inequality.”
The article cites research that scrutinizes the international and national teen birth rate variations, and illustrates how socioeconomics play a key role:
The researchers found a state’s level of economic inequality to be a significant influence in the birth rates. All other things being equal, “teens in the highest-inequality states are roughly 5 percentage points more likely to give birth as teens in the lowest-inequality states,” Kearney and Levine wrote.
One last finding of interest was that, while American teens may be engaging in less intercourse than their European peers, they are less apt to use contraceptives.
How can we explain this? Is it religion, naiveté, lack of access, or something else? Are you surprised by how the U.S. teen pregnancy rate outshines so many other industrialized nations?
graphics source, UNECE Statistical Database and UN Demographic Yearbook
Read more from source:“babycenter-com-baby”
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