Teen pregnancy is a chief setback in the United States. There are drastically more teenage pregnancies in the United States than all other developed countries worldwide (Cloe & Moore, 1995). According to, The Complete and Authoritative Guide: Caring for Your Teenager, out of every five women under twenty, two will become pregnant. In 2010, the total number of pregnancies in the United States was 821,810 (84 pregnancies per 1,000 people). Weigh against Canada whose total rate of teen pregnancies for 2010 was 38,600 (38 pregnancies per 1,000 people). Many other western industrialized countries, such as Sweden and France, have even lower teen pregnancy rates than Canada. When compared to other countries, it’s easy to understand why the United States is considered to have a severe intricacy when it comes to teen pregnancy.
When analyzing teen pregnancy, an effective way to get to the derivation of the dilemma is using the critical element of the sociological imagination. Critically, the two most common ways to look at teen pregnancy are through a conservative or a liberal lens. Each side has their own counter to the question, what causes teen pregnancy, and how can we prevent it? When the socioeconomic factor is examined the question we might ask is, “Does welfare motivate children to have children?” Most conservative minded people would say that people with low incomes are lazy or ill-motivated to work. They believe welfare does prompt teens to becoming pregnant. The common fallacy is that underprivileged teens deliberately have children so they can live off welfare all their lives.
Liberals have another way of answering if welfare causes teen pregnancy; they look at the data. Throughout history, welfare has not been a factor fo...
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Teenagers who become mothers have harsh prospects for the future. Teenagers obtaining abortions are 20% and girls under 15 accounts for 1.2%. They are much more likely to leave of school; receive insufficient prenatal care; rely on public assistance to raise a child; develop health problems; or en...
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As everyone knows, teen pregnancy rate is increasing more and more each day and someone needs to do something to try and either stop it or decrease it dramatically. Teen pregnancy is causing dramatic population increase and that’s just common sense. Teens getting pregnant at such a young age is also causing poverty levels to go up more and more. Mississippi Spent over $100 million on teen pregnancy alone in the year 2010 (“Teen Pregnancy”). Just think of what it is now. More teens are dropping out of school and not finishing their education. According to the authors of this article, “approximately 30 percent of teen mothers have mothers who dropped out of high school, 40 percent have mothers who are mothers who dropped out of high school, 40 percent have mothers who are high school graduates, and 30 percent have mothers who attended college”(Kearny et al 143). Many people don’t realize that there are many effects of teen pregnancy including higher risk of birth defect, more likely to drop out, and also abortion rates increase.
The female teen stares into the eyes of her newborn son, not realizing the type of life her and her son will have in the near future. Katrina L. Burchett excellently explicates teenage pregnancy among female adolescents living with domestic problems in her book titled Choices. The various elements that aid to the wide range of teenage pregnancies in the world should all be taken in to consideration. Getting pregnant at an adult is no longer substantial or conventional in our society. Everyday, female young adults are getting pregnant, which is why it is a social issue for the youth today.
The birth rate among teens in the United States has declined 9% from 2009 to 2010, a historic low among all racial and ethnic groups, with the least being born in 2010; and in 2011 the number of babies born to adolescents aged 15-19 years of age was 329,797 (“Birth Rates for U.S.”, 2012). Although the decline in unwanted and unplanned teen births is on the rise the United States continues to be among the highest of industrialized countries facing this problem. This is a prevailing social concern because of the health risks to these young mothers as well as their babies. Teens at higher risk of becoming pregnant are raised at or below the poverty level by single parents; live in environments that cause high levels of stress (i.e., divorce, sexual psychological and physical abuse); are influenced by peers or family members that are sexually active; and lack parental guidance that would direct them to be responsible and self-controlled.
Between 1996 and 2006, Canada 's teenage pregnancy rate steadily declined by 37%. However, since 2006, Canada 's teenage pregnancy rate has been on the rise, increasing from 27.9 pregnancies per 1,000 teens, to 28.2. This is of great concern to Canada, for teenage pregnancy has many health, social, and media issues. Therefore, teenage pregnancy in Canada requires a solution, that will prevent such pregnancies, and support the teen parents
Although there are still troubles with teenage pregnancy, there are people out there who are putting forth effort to help the social problem. Countless organizations are beginning to show up and attempt in helping these teens. There is a group that started in Austin, Texas called The Tandem Teen Prenatal and Parenting Program. “Tandem has been effective in improving the health and well-being of teenage parents and their children and has more than halved the national subsequent pregnancy rate of 24% among its clients by more then half” (Rosell, Scarborough, Lewis, 2010). Tandem is trying to help in improving the lives of the teen parents who do not have much help from anyone else. “They provide one-on-one prenatal education at appropriate intervals, with the aid of topical packets that include print and video material” (Rosell, Scarborough, Lewis, 2010).
In addition to the question of which teenagers become pregnant, interest is shown in the social consequences of early parenthood. Adolescent parents (mostly mothers) may find that they have a "lost or limited opportunity for education." The higher a woman's level of education, the more likely she is to postpone marriage and childbearing. Adolescents with little schooling are often twice as likely as those with more education to have a baby before their twentieth birthday. Some 58% of young women in the United States who receive less than a high school education give birth by the time they are twenty years old, com...
Though the teen birth rate has declined to its lowest levels since data collection began, the United States still has the highest teen birth rate in the industrialized world. Roughly, one in four girls will become pregnant at least once by their 20th birthday. In addition, young people ages 15 to 24 represent 25 percent of the sexually active population, but acquire half of all new STIs.
O'Halloran, P. (n.d.). Pregnancy, Poverty, School and Employment. www.moapp.org. Retrieved May 23, 2011, from www.moappp.org/pregnancypovertyschoolandemployment
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