Despite significant falls in the rate of teenage pregnancies over the past two decades in the UK, academic experts say there are still huge regional differences, and the country’s teenage birth rates remain one of highest among developed nations.
These inequalities have been explored in a new book , Teenage Pregnancy and Young Parenthood , by Alison Hadley OBE who is Director of the Teenage Pregnancy Knowledge Exchange based at the University of Bedfordshire.
In the two decades following the introduction of the Labour government’s Teenage Pregnancy Strategy, England has seen a 72% fall in the under-18 conception rate. However, significant inequalities persist across the country and some outcomes for young parents and their children are worsening.
Notably the most recent (2021) conception data, collected by the Office for National Statistics , shows the first increase in 14 years, an upward trend which continued into the first half of 2022.
The book which Hadley co-authored with experts from the Universities of Southampton and Bradford and the World Health Organization (WHO), reviews the latest evidence and latest data, dissects the impact of the Teenage Pregnancy Strategy (TPS), and looks at what has happened since 2018 in the UK and internationally.
The authors conducted comprehensive interviews in England from national and local teams involved in reducing teen pregnancy rates since the end of the strategy to see what factors supported or hindered progress. The support for young parents was also reviewed. These interviews informed recommendations to government to support further progress.
While respondents reported some supportive factors – notably the introduction of statutory relationships, sex and health education (RSHE) in all schools, there were some significant challenges which have affected both young people and how local areas have been able to meet their needs.
Issues and concerns most commonly cited were:
The impact of austerity and cost of living crisis
The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic which exacerbated many of the pre-existing problems for services and young people with:
Digital services and social media.
Losing the priority . Despite the persistent inequalities, respondents often encountered a sense of complacency that the ‘rates are down, so the job is done’ with a lack of national leadership or monitoring making it hard for local prioritisation.
Hadley comments: “Against these challenges, there has been remarkable commitment by individuals at local level to maintain the principles and actions from the strategy, illustrated by the many excellent case studies on both prevention and support for young parents.
“But progress cannot and should not rely on passionate individual champions. There is a clear call for national leadership to recommit to this priority and to reverse the severely detrimental effects of long-term austerity. Going forward, the government must invest in delivery of effective RSHE, increase local authority budgets, provide easily accessible contraception services, improve support for young parents and re-establish national partnerships which are the backbone of successful local strategies. Unless greater recognition and funding is given to councils to invest in prevention services, an increase in young people facing unplanned pregnancy and STIs − and the worsening of outcomes for young parents and their children, is now a real risk. Spending on young people now is investment for the future.
“As Labour returns to office, this is the time to develop a new cross-government youth strategy, with health and wellbeing at the centre, to re-build the scaffold of services to reach and support young people. This will provide a secure policy context for the next chapter of the teenage pregnancy strategy and prevent the legacy of a highly successful programme of work from unravelling.”