The US teen birth rate has fallen to its lowest level in 70 years, a study said Wednesday, as an expert pointed to regular contraceptive use by teens as the main cause of the drop.More at the link.
The 2009 rate was 39.1 births per 1,000 girls aged 15-19, or 59 percent lower than the high of 96.3 births per 1,000 recorded in 1957, said the report by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS)...
"But the US teen birth rate still far outpaces most European countries," Lindberg cautioned.
The teen birth rate in Russia was nine percentage points lower than in the United States, while among European Union member states, only Bulgaria had a higher rate -- 43.4 percent -- of teen births than the United States, according to UN statistics included in the NCHS report.
In France and Germany, only around 10 percent of teenaged girls have babies, while in Britain the ratio is around one in four, a high rate for Europe but still around 13 percentage points lower than in the United States.
04 February 2011
U.S. teen birth rate at record low
For some reason, that title seems counterintuitive. The report comes from The Raw Story:
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Dubious use of percentages in the article. ex: 39 out of 1000 is not 39%, it is 3.9% (so instead it would it be labeled 39 permil?? per-k??)
ReplyDeleteAn editor somewhere should be getting reprimanded.
Hm. I wonder if the higher rate in the US is caused by the children of religious fundies. You know - those who decry birth control as being "against God's wishes" and who shudder in horror at the mere thought of teaching their children about sexuality, responsibility and the like. Like Sarah Palin and her daughter.
ReplyDeleteThe future belongs to the living. Vote your own family off the island, mine's growing.
ReplyDeleteI'm quite confused by the percentages as well. It seems one statistic is "births per 1000 teenaged girls" and the other statistic is "teen pregnancy rate," which are not comparable statistics if the same girls are having multiple babies in their teens. Even considering that, the numbers don't make much sense - say that each baby was by a unique girl, then the 3.9% rate listed for the US is much lower than the rates listed for European countries. Am I missing something?
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