Across the globe, teenage pregnancy rates have been falling for at least the last 10 years but social scientists still don’t fully understand the reasons why. In England in 2008, about 39,000 girls under the age of 18 became pregnant, a rate of 40 per 1,000. By 2018 the rate had gone down to just under 17 per 1,000 a drop of nearly 60 per cent.
Similar decreases have been seen across the developed world both near (including Ireland and many European countries) and far (the US, Australia and New Zealand), despite different policy approaches and interventions by governments.
Some of my recent research carried out alongside professor Stephen Bullivant and Juan Soto of St Mary’s University examines the impact of different types of policies on teenage pregnancy rates in 45 countries between 1990 and 2017. We focus particularly on laws mandating sex and relationships education (SRE) programmes within schools but also examine policies on parental involvement and access to contraception.
Why have pregnancy rates been going down so consistently?
The results suggest none of the interventions were particularly effective in reducing teenage pregnancy rates.
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