Teen Birth-rate Hits All-time Low

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Here's the article. (http://voices.washingtonpost.com/checkup/2011/02/teen_birth_decline_back_on_tra.html?hpid=news-col-blog)

Thoughts?

P.S. Haven't read the article yet, just stumbled on to it. Will tomorrow. Or, more accurately, later today.

[MystyrMystyry]

Kids are getting smarter younger - this is a good thing, and also because new tech is getting cheaper and the things you can do with it more interesting than recreational procreation (yes - that was one of mine!) who has time for it who isn't getting paid for it (I'm talking to you, less than salubrious voyeuristic websites)

Well I for one think education is the buzzword of 2011 (and hopefully the rest of the century at least) and the more time you have not feeding extra mouths the more you have to feed your own - I mean the more time you have to further your education in both different and preferred specialist areas

This is a good thing

It is not to cast any gloom over those having/had children, because the raising of someone from a sprog to adulthood is a learning experience in itself with its own rewards like having someone to look after you when you're too decrepit to do it yourself (actually it may happen at any time, not just oldtimers but youngtimers)

But like anything it comes with an elephant of risk - there are cars to watch out for, prams left unbraked on steep hills, actually

when I was a tot I was left in a car without the handbrake on and it was probably only by the grace of a quickthinking very fit bloke running after and opening the door and getting in to slam on the appropriate pedal that I am alive today

I had many near misses as an infant, and, in fact, up until and including today - but that's between me and the fencepost (I won, incidentally)

So while we need a next generation to hopefully right the wrongs of the previous - I say we all take Rupert Murdoch to court and make him personally replant every tree that his newspaper corporation is responsible for chopping down - and keep him on life-support until the job's done!

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

MM, I can't remember the last time I read something that covered so much with so few words, haha.

[OrphanPip]

I think it's a little early to claim a trend change from stability. Also, it's too bad they don't include reported teen pregnancies so that we could see if there were any changes in rates of abortion or miscarriage.

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/kits-trousses/preg-gross/preg-gross-eng.htm

Canada was able to drop its teen birth rate significantly in the 90s with an increase in teen access to abortion.

Edit: It's easier to record these things in Canada of course because of the public health system.

[Patrick_Bateman]

I thought the title had a glaring typo. But no it really is meant to say 'low'.

This patently does not refer to Britain's teens.

[The Atheist]

:smilielol5:


As a result, proponents of abstinence education welcomed the new data, saying they exonerated their approach.

I was looking for it, and sure enough...

[Sionn Harrow]

This article didn't mention pregnancy rates or abortion rates...

[litera9]

This article didn't mention pregnancy rates or abortion rates...

That's a great point. I mean, either abortions went up, pregnancies went down, or both.

[YesNo]

The article mentions that the decline might be due to the recession:


The reason for the record low remains unclear. But some experts have attributed it to the recession, noting that the overall fertility rate as well as the total number of births in the United States fell a second straight year in 2009 as well.

Some claim that the overall fertility rate as well as the recession has a deeper cause: social mood. These people might say that we are headed for a depression this decade because of social mood.

You could check out the "socionomics" at Elliot Wave International http://www.elliottwave.com/ for a view like this. However, they are mainly motivated to find a technique to do market timing. I am not associated with them, but I find their free email newsletter enjoyable to skim through at the moment. We'll all see if they are right or not.

[1n50mn14]

Maybe my city is just stupid, but I know at least twenty girls from my 4 years in high school who now have babies. AT LEAST twenty.

[OrphanPip]

Maybe my city is just stupid, but I know at least twenty girls from my 4 years in high school who now have babies. AT LEAST twenty.

My graduating class is about the same, given that only like 5/60 went on to university at all. I went to a crummy secondary school though. And these girls were mostly 17 when they had the babies though. I only knew one girl who had a baby younger than that.

[JuniperWoolf]

Maybe my city is just stupid, but I know at least twenty girls from my 4 years in high school who now have babies. AT LEAST twenty.

I only had seventy kids in my year, but there are about 12 moms and 4 dads (who don't have babies with those same girls). Then again, in this town, you get a job at the mine if you're a guy, pop out a couple of kids if you're a girl, then stay that way for the rest of your life buried under the clay of industrial hell. Not that I'm bitter or anything.

I had one girl with a funny name that had a baby at age thirteen, quite the scandal.

[jmnixon95]

I kind of see it; after all, as far as America/Western Europe/places like Japan, South Korea go... women are waiting a lot longer to marry and have children.
I am a teenager myself (fifteen), and my father was born to a junior in high school, while my maternal grandparents had their first child, my aunt, at seventeen. Now, however, my family has no such teen pregnancies. The more developed the country is, I find, the older the parents become.

[OrphanPip]

That and the fact that women can now live comfortably without having to be dependent on a male. Most women simply didn't have the option to delay their first child.

My mother is college educated, a somewhat rare trait for women born in the late 50s/early 60s, and that is certainly a reason why she was nearly 30 before having her first child.