
English and Welsh teenage pregnancies – perception versus reality - DanBC
http://visual.ons.gov.uk/teenage-pregnancies-perception-versus-reality/
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Tharre
I like how they made it impossible to actually give the correct answer.

But seriously, if you really want to over-engineer the simple problem of
entering a number why not at least use a somewhat logarithmic scale to make it
possible to actually insert the correct value?

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rahimnathwani
And why is the question about girls _under_ 16 (i.e. up to 15 years old), when
the title of the article is about teenage pregnancy (up to nineteen years
old)? It seems designed to confuse.

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true_religion
I think that's because the statistics are typically reported in age-group
cohorts, so people 'in the know' tend to think of it as pregnancies from age
13-15, pregnancies from age 15-17, pregnancies from age 17-19.

At least, that'd be my guess because when I was doing research on teenage
crime rates, the government statistics that I found initially were all
expressed as such and I didn't have access to the raw data.

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cheez
Usability issues aside, this is an incredible result. A lot of poverty and
social issues come from having children before the parents can reasonably
support or take care of them. This leads to neglect or resentment of the
children, which affects everyone. By having young people thinking about
avoiding pregnancy, that sets them up for good family planning practices.

Watching the map go from purple to white, I was speechless. I'd be interested
if someone was able to talk about the potential reasons.

I'd be cautious to credit the government with this change. In talking to my
own daughter, I think the exposure of what happens as a result of teenage
pregnancy (16 and pregnant, anyone?) and the lack of a stigma against talking
about it with your peers is possibly one of the biggest contributors. When I
was 16/17 and having sex, and I talked to my peers about IUDs or the depo
injections, it wasn't cool.

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Mz
I am not up on current stats and have never been that familiar with European
trends, but, in the US, girls in some poor neighborhoods actually see their
quality of life go up by having a baby in their teens because their family of
origin is so poor that having a baby qualifies them for welfare benefits,
allowing them to move out etc. They are still poor, and now they are trapped
in long term poverty, but there are short term benefits.

I have seen study results indicating that one contributor to high pregnancy
rates is shame concerning sex. For some populations, this results in less use
of birth control because use of birth control involves planning to have sex
and if you plan it, you "must be a slut." Whereas if you are emotionally swept
away and "it just happens" that is okay because it is "love."

So one thing that helps is generally healthier attitudes towards sex in the
general population and easier access to birth control. A big difference
between teens who get pregnant and teens who don't is use of birth control.
The teens who wind up pregnant aren't necessarily any more sexually active. In
some cases, the two groups see comparable levels of sexual activity, but one
group uses birth control and one does not.

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cheez
Well said.

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jakobegger
I'd really love to see a graph of smartphone sales vs. teenage pregnancies.

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Mz
I ask this in complete earnestness, because your remark is what caused me to
read the article, but how is this related to the data in the article? Why are
you asking this? Because I would love to know if I have missed some relevant
detail that might be meaningful.

Thanks.

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nostrademons
[https://xkcd.com/925/](https://xkcd.com/925/)

Teen pregnancies cause cell phones, duh! ;-)

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Mz
Damnit. I am old and slow.

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rahimnathwani
The article claims that 'more young women in higher education' as a factor in
falling teenage pregnancies. However, I can't see how being in higher
education (which starts at 18) can affect teen pregnancies (which the article
defines as 'under 18 pregnancies').

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tbarbugli
0.5% and 2% are still really high!

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TillE
I don't think so. In each case it should be less than 5% of those who are
sexually active. Considering that kids are stupid and make mistakes, there's
going to be some irreducible number.

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DanBC
England is still higher than the rest of Europe, I think.

