Teen Pregnancy Statistics

It took a few decades to catch on, but teen pregnancy has decreased significantly since the late '80s. Thanks to the mass distribution of contraceptives and the addition of safe-sex advice to curricula of previously abstinence-only sexual education courses.

2006 was a paramount year for teen pregnancy statistics, according to data reported by the Guttmacher Institute. Teen pregnancy statistics between the 1990s and 2005 had shown a decrease in birth rates, abortions and pregnancies in black, Caucasian and Hispanic teens. Yet nearly all of these numbers increased in 2006, the first time in nearly a decade.

According to the report released by the Guttmacher Institute in 2010, three-quarters of a million women under the age of 20 got pregnant in 2006. Seven perfect of all women between the ages 15 and 19 were pregnant that year. Before 2006, pregnancy rates in African-American and Caucasian teens both decreased by about half. Hispanic teen pregnancies decreased by a quarter.

The research didn't collect information about post-pregnancy lifestyles, such as adoption or raising the child as a single mother, but it did publish abortion trends between 1972 and 2006. Abortion rates in 2006 were nearly the lowest for the firs time since 1972. And with the exception of 2004 and 2005, the pregnancy rate of sexually active teens between 15 and 19 years old has decreased considerabley. The Guttmacher Institute found that in 1990, the pregnancy rate was nearly 12 percent. In 2006, the pregnancy rate is just over 7 percent.