Study: U.S. Economic System Generates Teen Pregnancies
Fri, 05/22/2009 - 20:41 >> CausalCrunch
The Equality Trust -- One and a quarter million teenagers become pregnant each year in the rich OECD countries and about three quarters of a million go on to become teenage mothers. The differences in teen birth rates between countries are striking. In the USA the teenage birth rate is 52.1 per 1000 women aged 15-19, more than ten times higher than Japan, which has a rate of 4.6.
Babies born to teenage mothers are more likely to have low birth weight, to be born prematurely, to be at higher risk of dying in infancy and, as they grow up, to be at greater risk of educational failure, juvenile crime and becoming teenage parents themselves. Girls who give birth as teenagers are more likely to be poor and uneducated. Teenage motherhood is part of the inter-generational cycle of deprivation and social exclusion.
We have shown that teenage births are related to income inequality internationally in a study published in the American Journal of Public Health. Other researchers have shown the same association in the United States.
Click Image to enlarge
For more information:
Gold R, Kawachi I, Kennedy BP, Lynch JW, Connell FA. Ecological analysis of teen birth rates: association with community income and income inequality. Maternal and Child Health Journal 2001;5(3):161-7.
Pickett KE, Mookherjee J, Wilkinson RG. Adolescent birth rates, total homicides, and income inequality in rich countries. American Journal of Public Health 2005;95(7):1181-3.
In the UK: http://www.everychildmatters.gov.uk/teenagepregnancy/
In the USA: http://www.guttmacher.org/index.html
Wilkinson RG, Pickett KE. The Spirit Level. Penguin. 2009. Buy the book from Amazon.
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Comments
Scapegoat
(authenticated user)
Amputate The Clitoris And Sew The Vagina Shut!
Should Americans amputate the clitoris and sew the vagina shut of girls at the tender age of five as some Islamic sects do? Should we tell girls to "Just say 'no' to sex"? Should we show girls horrific pictures of sexual diseases and tell them terrifying stories concerning sexual activity to deter them from having sex? Is it possible for any of the aforementioned tactics to lead to sexual neurosis in adulthood? Do humans go through a critical stage of sexual development somewhat like they go through critical stages of sight and language development? What causal factors could result in a 19 year old woman having a baby with low birth weight? What causal factors could result in 15 to 19 year old females having sex? Do 15 to 19 year old females experience any sort of internal stimulation, which result from an increase biological activity and which could be said to be equivalent to the sexual instinct in Bonobos? Do females ages 15 to 19 have the same hormonal levels that they had during previous stages of life? What causal factors could result in 15 to 19 year old females not using birth control? Are there economic reasons for suppressing human sexuality? Are there any reasons for suppressing sexuality in a capitalist economy? Is the sexually repressed individual any easier to manipulate and control than the individual who hasn't been subjected to repression? Is the sexually repressed individual any healthier than the individual whose sexuality hasn't been repressed? Can you think of any questions that should be asked concerning this issue that I may have overlooked?
ineptsegue
(Beingism Founder)
Sex education!
I should think that educating both girls and boys about sexuality so they can make informed decisions for themselves would be ideal. Repressing people to a massive extent may reduce teen pregnancies, but at a rather distressingly high cost! I think CausalCrunch posted the article to show yet another reason we should work to address inequalities. What are you getting at?
Scapegoat
(authenticated user)
Something bob across my path that made me think of you
Yesterday I was at a small strip mall picking up some doggy supplies. Low and behold a teenager (I assume) of unknown years (at my age even 21 year olds look like kids, but this one was wearing lots of make up, making precise age only predictable) suddenly changed directions and began walking directly in front of me. I could see the long artificial fingernails with glitter and flowers, the beautifully braided hair of reddish brown, a pair of hot pink tights that covered her pretty golden skin but was necessary because the yellow skirt was so short I could see the division of her legs as she bobbed along. Then I wondered, "was it really the US Economic System that created her?" I also realized that to give this young lady sex education better include the proper use of condoms. Was it the US Economic System that had awaken her sexuality? Who would decide what sort of sex education would help this young lady make an "informed" decision? Is it possible that this young lady's economic "superiors" are not behaving much differently but make more "educated" choices. Or maybe her "educated economic superiors" are more likely to abort instead of carrying a child to term? I mean, I know free will is an illusion. I know causal factors are involved in the pregnancy rate. But I can't help but wonder if the research into the causal factors involved was really thorough enough?
ineptsegue
(Beingism Founder)
I could be wrong, but I don't
I could be wrong, but I don't think the research here even attempts to determine *what* it is exactly that links high inequality with teen pregnancies. That's a good question and I'm sure further research into that would be quite fascinating. A significant part of it is, I'm sure, that less equal contries lack of the kind of education we need. I have to imagine that kids and teens who learn to have a healthy self esteem, delay gratification when important, take care of their bodies, think logically, value their happiness, and value the happiness of others (and, of course, who learn to use birth control) will be less likely to have babies they don't want.
Mind you, I think it's perfectly healthy for teens to have sex, personally, so long as they're emotionally healthy enough in the first to be making choices about their lives in the first place. It's just that they often aren't prepared for these choices, and so when they come of an age that asks these choices of them, they aren't as able to make them intelligently.
Scapegoat
(authenticated user)
Self Esteem and Delaying Gratification
I thought about you again yesterday evening. This time it was a Publix (food store) cashier that evoked the memory. Facing me at the checkout was a LCD display that had what I thought was some pictures of the cashier's child. I asked if she was showing off pictures of her kid. She said she wasn't old enough to have any kids and walked around to take a look and got a laugh. Seems the picture wasn't taped on the display but was being displayed so as to look like it was. (I have cataracts) Then she told me that on second thought she guess she was old enough to have kids but was going to wait a while. I told her about our discussion here and our speculating on the causal factors that result in some young ladies waiting and some not.
I'm glad you included the term "healthy" with self esteem, because of the recent research that suggest trying to give a child too much self esteem is unhealthy. In fact, violent prisoners have higher self esteem than the average person. Mixing self esteem with lessons in regard to compassion makes for healthy self esteem.
Also your "delay gratification" invoked thought. Research has determined that a young child who can refrain from eating a piece of candy, under the promise that he (or she) will receive another piece of candy later, is a child that usually has the capacity to delay gratification in later life. Personally I feel, both from observing kids and dogs, that delaying gratification most often is the result of not being previously deprived to the point of desperation: The ones that waited and found the wait to be ungratifying, resulted in them loosing their incentive to wait. The ones that waited and found the wait to be gratifying, resulted in reinforcement of their incentive to wait. In both cases the wait was not an act of so called, "free will," but responses conditioned into the child by the child's previous circumstances.
ineptsegue
(Beingism Founder)
Can self esteem be too high?
I remember hearing a program on public radio a couple of years ago about self esteem and whether it was possible to have too much. Honestly, though, I don't really think this is a problem--or at least I think that it's a misstatement of the real problem, which is *low* self esteem that only looks to a person with less clinical psychological experience like *high* self esteem. In my experience people who appear to think excessively highly of themselves (to the point where they're out of touch with reality) are usually (if not always) compensating for an excessively *low* self esteem. Narcissism, probably the most extreme form of this, is an extremely painful mental state where people who (perhaps unconsciously) think of themselves as fairly worthless convince parts of themselves (and try to convince others) that they are in fact superior to others. Why, besides my experience in the mental health field, do I think it isn't likely for someone to have an actual, overly inflated sense of self esteem? I just don't see how any person would come to the conclusion that they're so amazing compared to others if it weren't true. For a person who has a realistic sense of her or his own value, there really isn't any motivation for believing this--unless one has an emotional need to do so, which tends to suggest a *low* self esteem. People who have an internal conviction of themselves as worthy and loveable don't tend to think more highly of themselves than is realistic because they have no emotional motivation for developing this cognitive distortion. I mean, how many people would think about the issue of their own worth in comparison to that of others and rationally come to the conclusion that they're better than other people? If they come to that conclusion, they probably believe it because they want to believe it.
I think another part of the anti-self esteem movement raises objections to programs that aim to increase self esteem by giving out awards, praise, and other rewards for relatively inconsequential acts. The thing is, whatever these programs do, for the most part it isn't to increase self esteem. When people reward kids for things that are easy for them, kids may well game the system in order to take advantage of it, but they generally don't feel better about themselves as a result. Any increased sense of self you get from being given stuff for nothing is going to be pretty hollow. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if this kind of thing *lowered* self esteem. So I agree with the detractors of such programs that these kinds of things shouldn't be practiced--I just think we need to be clear that having a high self esteem is a good thing. We just need to teach actual self esteem, not compensatory defense mechanisms.
I think you’re spot on about the delayed gratification issue.
Scapegoat
(authenticated user)
Trivia
I assume you know Youtube User, NatureCompassion (Ken B), since you have a couple of his videos here on Beingism.org. Well, it was while visiting his Channel on Youtube that I viewed a Favored video titled, Duke University Professor Explains "Self-Compassion" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAifaBhh2xo). And it was there that I was introduced to the idea that psychology seems to be starting to stress self-compassion more than self-esteem.
By the way, do you know Tom Clark? I was the one that split Tom's speech to the Freethought Association into six parts and uploaded them to rhetoricalmonkey's Channel (I didn't have a Youtube account at the time.)
ineptsegue
(Beingism Founder)
Re: Trivia
Yes, we know NatureCompassion... I really like the videos he's made, which is why they're posted around the site! I don't know Tom myself, but I'll have to check out his videos.
While I think that the bad press self esteem gets largely results from crappy definitions of "self-esteem" and a failure to understand the concept of compensatory defense mechanisms, I definitely think there's a lot of value in the concept of self-compassion as well!
Scapegoat
(authenticated user)
Tom Clark of www.Naturalism.org
I now realize I didn't mention who Tom was because I assumed you knew him, primarily because it seems I recall seeing a link to http://naturalism.org/ here at http://beingism.org. Sorry about that.
Anyway, thanks for the input on the self-esteem vs self-compassion controversy.
Scapegoat
(authenticated user)
"What are you getting at?"
I don't understand? I was covering as many factors to be taken into consideration that I could think of. And I asked for any suggestions concerning the causal factors that have resulted in the U.S. Economic System Generating Teen Pregnancies, and what could be done to prevent it. Your suggestion, "Sex Education!" makes me wonder whether the education would have no agenda but pure unbiased education. And if so, I can't help but wonder whether any group out there would object to sex education unless it is sex education from their perspective?
My readings have lead me to believe controlling female sexuality has been an objective of many human cultures throughout history. The amputation and sewing shut was the way one segment of Islam handed the situation. Surely your realize I was merely asking the question to express the irony of the procedure?
What precisely made you think I was "getting at" something?
Of course, a few of my questions were asked because some of the tactics have been used in the past by one group or another. And, I don't think we should go back to those methods of control. But I have little doubt there are people who think we should. Is that what you mean?
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