Antecedents of Adolescent Pregnancy

Abstract

The recognition of which girls are at risk of becoming pregnant before the age of 16 years is of interest to legal, educational, social and medical services. In this paper a large amount of data, available for a total population of schoolgirls, has been used to show that prediction is indeed possible. It was found that compared to a group of girls matched on a number of sociodemographic characteristics, those who became pregnant during adolescence were more likely to have been academic underachievers at age 11, to have made an appearance in a juvenile court, and to have been referred to a child guidance or psychiatric clinic at an early age. Difficulties over matching also suggest that they are more likely to have five or more siblings, to be illegitimate and to have mothers who were themselves teenagers at the time of their daughter's birth.