Teenage pregnancy statistics in the United States vary by state. In 2000, teen birth rates were highest in Mississippi, Texas, Arizona, Arkansas, and New Mexico; Nevada had the highest teen pregnancy rate at 113 per 1000 women. Birth rates were lowest in New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, North Dakota, and Maine; the lowest birth rate was found in North Dakota, with 42 per 1000 women.
Abortion rates among teenage girls were highest in the District of Columbia, New Jersey, New York, Maryland, Nevada, and California. Indeed, more than fifty percent of pregnant adolescents in New Jersey, New York, Maryland, Massachusetts, and the District of Columbia choose to terminate their pregnancies. Adolescents in Utah, Kentucky, South Dakota, and North Dakota had the lowest abortion rates; South Dakota, Kentucky, and Utah had fewer than 17% of their pregnant teenagers choose abortion.
According to available teenage pregnancy statistics, Arkansas has the highest pregnancy rate among its non-Hispanic white teen population, with 77 per 1000. Other southern states also showed a similar trend, having high non-Hispanic white pregnancy rates; the teenage pregnancy statistics regarding rates for Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, Kentucky, and South Carolina, for example, ranged from 71 to 73 per 1000. Again, North Dakota had the lowest rate among non-Hispanic whites, with 33 per 1000.
When looking at teenage pregnancy statistics for black teenagers between the ages of 15 to 19, rates of pregnancy were highest in New Jersey, with 209 per 1000; following closely were Wisconsin, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Oregon with rates ranging from 161 to 177 per 1000. Pregnancy rates among black teens were lowest in Utah, New Mexico, West Virginia, Rhode Island, and Colorado, where they ranged from 71 to 114 per 1000.
Moving to the Hispanic population, pregnancy rates ranged from 154 to 169 per 1000 in Georgia, Arizona, Tennessee, Colorado, and Delaware, the states which have the highest rates among this group. The lowest rates for Hispanic teens are found in Mississippi, Missouri, South Dakota, and Ohio, where the numbers range from 71 to 115 per 1000.
Between 1988 and 2000, teenage pregnancy rates declined in every state and among all groups. The pregnancy rate among black teenagers between the ages of 15 and 19 declined by 40% between 1990 and 2002. The decrease in white teenagers was of 34% and among Hispanic teens it was of 19%. Compared to its peak in 1988, the teen abortion rate decreased by almost 50% in 2002. This decline reflected in teenage pregnancy statistics represents the fact that fewer teenagers are having sexual intercourse, 47% in 2003 compared to 53% in 1993. Alongside the increase in abstinence, however, there has been an increase in the rates of contraceptive use.
Rates of teenage pregnancy in Jamaica are among the highest in the Caribbean, with the birth rate for 15-19 year olds at 108 births per 1,000 women. Forty-five percent of all Jamaican women who are 15 to 24 years old have been pregnant by 19 years of age, and 41% have given birth. Females between the ages of 10 and 19 account for roughly 25% of all births in Jamaica and about 22% of births in 15-19 year-olds are second births.
There are a number of consequences to teenage pregnancy in Jamaica. First of all, the education of the adolescent mother is disrupted and often completely ended. Indeed, only 36% of teenage mothers complete more than four years of secondary school, compared to 50% of girls who never become pregnant. The mother, then, is severely limited in her job opportunities. Furthermore, parents and society in general will not look kindly upon a young girl who has engaged in sexual activity at a young age, and often a girl is disowned and must support herself and her child alone.
Teenage pregnancy in Jamaica also carries with it health risks to the mother and child, though doubts have been raised as to whether these risks may also be attributed to socio-economic factors. Statistics show that maternal mortality rate is 40% higher for mothers under 15 and 13% higher for mothers in their twenties. It is not only the teen mother who experiences health risks, but the child of the adolescent mother as well. Research points to the fact that the neo-natal death rate for babies born to adolescent girls is roughly three times higher than for babies born to adults.
Speaking of socio-economic factors, there are further health risks to the child due to the often precarious financial situation of the adolescent mother. Often, the mother passes long periods of time away from the child to try to find work or chooses to work extra hours to make enough money. This often leads to the mother stopping breast-feeding early and switching the child to foods which lack the essential nutrients found in breast milk; this leads to poor health and malnutrition among Jamaican children. The socio-economic situation of the Jamaican mother also often leads to child shifting, where a child is sent to live with other family members or other families, away from the mother. Studies have shown that 1 out of 5 Jamaican children did not live with either their mother or father; very often the shifted child will be placed in a negative environment.
What Jamaican society is beginning to realize is that the negative effects of teenage pregnancy in Jamaica are not felt solely by the adolescent mother or her child. The Jamaican economy suffers because of a poor labor force due to so many young girls being uneducated and because the resources of the country must be funneled into welfare programs for teenage mothers. Indeed, teenage pregnancy in Jamaica is obviously a complex and multi-faceted problem.
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