Facts and Statistics

Teenage Pregnancy

• Nonwhite teenagers have twice the pregnancy rate of white teenagers-in 1988, the rates were 197 and 93, respectively.
• 50 percent of teenage pregnancies conceived in 1987 resulted in a birth, 36 percent in an abortion, and an estimated 14 percent in miscarriage.
• By age 18, one in four young women (24 percent) will have a pregnancy (21 percent of white teens and 40 percent of nonwhites). By age 20, more than four in 10 (44 percent) will have a pregnancy (41 percent of whites and 63 percent of nonwhites).
• Nearly one in five teenagers who experience a premarital pregnancy will get pregnant again within a year. Within two years, more than 31 percent will have a repeat pregnancy.
• Eight in 10 teenage pregnancies are unintended-nine in 10 pregnancies among unmarried teenagers and about half of those among married young women.
• U.S. teenagers have one of the highest pregnancy rates in the western world-twice as high as rates found in England, France, and Canada, three times as high as that in Sweden; and seven times as high as the Dutch rate.
• A 1985 international teenage pregnancy study concluded that teen pregnancy rates are lower in countries where there is greater availability of contraceptive services and sexuality education.

Consequences of Early Childbearing

• Teenage mothers are at greater risk of socioeconomic disadvantage throughout their lives than those who delay childbearing until their twenties. They are generally less educated, have larger families, and have higher levels of nonmarital, unintended births.
• The younger the mother, the greater the likelihood that she and her baby will experience health complications, primarily due to later prenatal care, poor nutrition, and other lifestyle factors.
• More teenage mothers are now graduating from high school than ever before, yet only half of the women who have their first child at age 17 or younger will have graduated from high school by age 30.
• Teens who become mothers are disproportionately poor and dependent on public assistance for their economic support.
• Public funds pay for the delivery costs of at least half of the births to teenagers.
• Each year, the U.S. government spends an estimated $25 billion on behalf of families in which the first birth occurred when the mother was a teenager. That estimate for 1990, which includes direct payments from Aid to Families with Dependent Children, Medicaid, and Food Stamps, does not include other public costs such as job training; housing subsidies; the Women, Infants, and Children supplemental food program; subsidized school meals; special education; foster care; or day care.
• If every birth to a teen mother in 1990 had been delayed until the woman were in her 20s, the federal government would have saved 40 percent of the calculated expenditures, or $10 billion.
• A family begun by a first birth to a teen mother in 1990 will cost the taxpayer an average of approximately $18,133 by the time the child reaches age 20.
• The children of teenage mothers are at greater risk of lower intellectual and academic achievement, social behavior problems, and problems of self-control than are children of older mothers, primarily due to the effects of single parenthood, lower maternal education, and larger family size.
• Although it is not inevitable, the daughters of teenage mothers are more likely to become teenage parents themselves.

Adoption

• In 46 states and the District of Columbia, mothers who are minors may legally place their child for adoption without parental involvement.
• From 2 to 3 percent of teen pregnancies become live births for which the mother makes an adoption plan.
• Less than 10 percent of the babies born to unmarried teens are placed in adoptive homes.
• Unmarried adolescent mothers who place their children for adoption are more likely to be white, have higher socioeconomic status and educational aspirations, and be from suburban residences.

Teenage Abortion

• Four in 10 teenage pregnancies (excluding miscarriages) end in abortion.
• While the rate of abortion (number of abortions per 1,000 women) among nonwhite teenagers (73) is considerably higher than the rate among white teenagers (36), the likelihood that nonwhite teenagers will end a pregnancy in abortion (abortion ratio) is about the same as for whites.
• 26 percent of all abortions in the U.S. each year are to women under age 20
• Every year, about 4 percent of women aged 15-19 have an abortion.
• The top three reasons cited by pregnant teenagers for choosing to have an abortion were concern about how having a baby would change their lives, their feeling that they are not mature enough to have a child, and financial problems.
• Access to confidential abortion services is essential to teenagers' health. Most teens who become pregnant already involve a parent in their decision; and laws that mandate parental involvement only victimize teens in unstable or abusive family situations -- a disproportionate number of whom are poor or minority. Moreover, such laws, which are required to include judicial bypass provisions, have been shown to have no effect on the percentage of teens who involve their parents.
• Laws that mandate the involvement of both parents place a special burden on African-American teens-only 39 percent of whom live with both parents, versus 79 percent of white minors.
• 23 states currently have mandatory parental consent or notice, or professional counseling laws in effect for a minor to obtain an abortion: AL, AR, GA, ID, IN, KS, LA, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MO, NB, ND, OH, RI, SC, TN, UT, WV, WI, WY.