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This book aims to consider the depiction of teenage pregnancy as a social and public health problem and to explore ways in which policy makers, academics and the media have responded to teenage pregnancy. The focus is on the late 1990s to the present. This book covers the British experience, though reference is made to other countries’ experiences of teenage pregnancy. This book is divided into two parts, wherein the first part focuses on describing the background to, factors associated with, everyday representations of and policy on teenage pregnancy, and the second part focuses on the depiction of teenage pregnancy as a problem.
This chapter outlines the structural, demographic and psycho-social factors associated with teenage pregnancy and fertility. This chapter focuses on women, mothers and motherhood, but there is a brief section on young fathers and children and young people who have been in the care system. This chapter confirms findings from other reviews, principally that teenage pregnancy and child bearing can be seen to be concentrated among low SES groups (whether measured by social class status, housing or geographic location) and among young women who have experienced low educational attainment or disengagement from the education system. Teenage mothers are also more likely to come from lone-parent families, and/or families that have a tradition of early fertility.
This chapter explores the myth-reality gap on teenage pregnancy, which focuses on contemporary British media representations of youthful pregnancy. It focuses on the role of the media in the emergence of teenage pregnancy as a problem. This chapter explores the representation of teenage pregnancy in the media, focusing especially on the sensational language and other journalistic devices used to describe teenage pregnancy and young mothers. The depiction of teenage pregnancy as problematic is largely the media’s making and owes much to the fact that the media deal with caricatures. Academics and policy makers may contribute, inadvertently or otherwise, to the production of negative discourses about pregnant or parenting teenagers, but both generally avoid the kind of language used by journalists and would claim not to give credence to the sentiments that lie behind it.
The election of the New Labour government in a landslide victory in 1997 marked the end of nearly two decades of Conservative rule. The party was voted into power again in 2001. In May 2005, Labour achieved a historical party first: its third consecutive term in office. Early in its first term, the New Labour government made a reduction in teenage pregnancy one of the foci of its reforming policy programme. Teenage Pregnancy, the seminal policy document that introduced the Teenage Pregnancy Strategy (TPS), reflected and embodied New Labour philosophy, with its focus on finding a third way on teenage pregnancy and its recognition of the deleterious effects of social exclusion on the lives of individuals and communities. This chapter discusses the three reasons advanced in Teenage Pregnancy for youthful conceptions, i.e., structural (‘low expectations’), technical/educational (‘ignorance’ about contraception and the reality of parenthood), and social or cultural (‘mixed messages’ about sex and parenthood). These and other features of Teenage Pregnancy are also discussed.
This chapter describes the consequences of teenage motherhood one a teenager and the effects on her mental and physical health and that of her children. The literature that is referred to here dates from the late 1990s and includes selected studies from the UK and other developed nations. The main results of the review are presented in tabular form, with study details, focus, etc. shown, and some information about the steps taken by researchers to minimise the confounding effects of variables such as SES or education. It is shown that child bearing in the teenage years is considered to cause poor outcomes in two main areas, i.e., socioeconomic situation, and health and well-being.
This chapter focuses on the decontextualised view of teenage pregnancy in the UK. It discusses the use of sometimes inappropriate comparisons between nations and a lack of understanding about the relationship between early conception and aspects of the British demographic, social, and economic landscape. It also discusses the relationship of sexual openness and sex education with low rates of teenage conception. This chapter also discusses teenage motherhood as a normative, and even positive, experience.
This chapter explores social-constructionist and related approaches to teenage pregnancy. It focuses on two political periods — the Conservatives in power from the 1980s to the late 1990s and the New Labour governments from the late 1990s onwards. In the two political periods under consideration, teenage mothers moved from being seen as deviant, moral outcasts responsible for their own ‘downfall’, to being dependents, vulnerable young women in need of help to make the correct choices about their own fertility. Where they are unable to do this, the state increasingly intervenes to support them to make the right decisions. This is part of a more general move towards surveillance of reproductive and family formation behaviours. Under both governments, teenage pregnancy was cast as a problem for different reasons, but there are commonalities between the two periods. This chapter considers how policy and wider social attitudes to pregnant and parenting teenagers are informed by the social conditions, norms, and anxieties of the day.
This book explores the representation of teenage pregnancy as a problem in UK and the ways in which policy makers, academics, and the media have responded to it. This book examines who is likely to have a baby as a teenager, the consequences of early motherhood and how teenage pregnancy is dealt with in the media. The main aim of the TPS is to reduce teenage conception rates. However, promoting opportunities for, and offering support to, young mothers is secondary. It is recommended that future policy efforts may be better placed and more effective if they are focused primarily on promoting the well-being of young mothers, and fathers as well, and their children and less on the depiction of teenage pregnancy as a problem.
In the last decades of the 20th century, successive British governments have regarded adolescent pregnancy and childbearing as a significant public health and social problem. Youthful pregnancy was once tackled by attacking young, single mothers but New Labour, through its Teenage Pregnancy Strategy, linked early pregnancy to social exclusion rather than personal morality and aimed, instead, to reduce teenage pregnancy and increase young mothers’ participation in education and employment. However, the problematisation of early pregnancy has been contested, and it has been suggested that teenage mothers have been made scapegoats for wider, often unsettling, social and demographic changes. The re-evaluation of early pregnancy as problematic means that, in some respects, teenage pregnancy has been ‘made’ and ‘unmade’ as a problem. Focusing on the period from the late-1990s to the present in the UK, this book examines who is likely to have a baby as a teenager, the consequences of early motherhood and how teenage pregnancy is dealt with in the media. The book argues that society’s negative attitude to young mothers is likely to marginalise an already excluded group, and that efforts should be focused primarily on supporting young mothers and their children.
In the last decades of the 20th century, successive British governments have regarded adolescent pregnancy and childbearing as a significant public health and social problem. Youthful pregnancy was once tackled by attacking young, single mothers but New Labour, through its Teenage Pregnancy Strategy, linked early pregnancy to social exclusion rather than personal morality and aimed, instead, to reduce teenage pregnancy and increase young mothers’ participation in education and employment. However, the problematisation of early pregnancy has been contested, and it has been suggested that teenage mothers have been made scapegoats for wider, often unsettling, social and demographic changes. The re-evaluation of early pregnancy as problematic means that, in some respects, teenage pregnancy has been ‘made’ and ‘unmade’ as a problem. Focusing on the period from the late-1990s to the present in the UK, this book examines who is likely to have a baby as a teenager, the consequences of early motherhood and how teenage pregnancy is dealt with in the media. The book argues that society’s negative attitude to young mothers is likely to marginalise an already excluded group, and that efforts should be focused primarily on supporting young mothers and their children.
