11 Facts About Teen Pregnancy

1. The U.S. has the highest teen pregnancy rate in the industrialized world – that’s twice as high as in England or Canada.
2. About 1 in 3 young women become pregnant at least once before they reach the age of 20.
3. 8 in 10 teen pregnancies are unintended, and 8 in 10 are to unmarried teens.
4. A sexually active teen who does not use contraceptives has a 90% chance of becoming pregnant within a year.
5. Only 1 in 3 teen moms receives a high school diploma. And only 1.5% have a college degree by age 30.
6. 3 of 4 girls and over half of boys report that girls who have sex do so because their boyfriends want them to.
7. 8 in 10 girls and 6 in 10 boys say they wish they had waited until they were older to have sex.
8. Most teens (6 in 10) and adults (3 in 4) believe that teen boys often receive the message that they are “expected to have sex.”
9. The teen birth rate has declined over the past 15 years and although the highest decline by race was for black women, the rates of both Latinos and blacks remain higher than for other groups.
10. Teen pregnancy costs the United States at least $9 billion annually. This includes increased spending in child welfare costs and public sector health care.
11. Girls born to teen moms are more likely to be teen moms themselves and boys born to teen moms are more likely to end up in prison.