Teenage pregnancies: Consequences of poverty, ethnic background, and social conditions

The study investigates the economic, ethnic and social background of teenagers before becoming teenage mothers or before having an induced abortion for the first time in order to study if results will be consistent with the hypotheses that poverty, social deprivation or ethnicity are causes of teen childbearing. A discrete-time proportional hazard model is applied to analyse the longitudinal observations of population-based registers covering 1981-2003 for girls born in 1981, and their parents. Results show a significant economic and social gradient for first-time teenage pregnancies. Teenagers who had experienced family separation or who were formerly in out-of-home care in particular had an increased risk of induced abortion or early childbearing. Thus teenage mothers were in every respect in a more disadvantaged position than pregnant teenagers who had an induced abortion. Although, induced abortions were at the same level for ethnic minorities as for ethnic Danes, this was not the case for teen motherhood, when controlling for social disadvantage and poverty.