Teenage Pregnancy and its effects on our society - Essay Example

The medical services to the teen mothers and their children are costlier than that of mothers above the age of 20. In spite of having decline in teen pregnancy since 1990s, the United States repots the highest rate of teen pregnancies in the world. It is reported that there had been over 760,000 pregnancies of the young women under the age of 20. The normal public is also affected by the teen child bearing because the problem creates an extra burden to the state, local governments, as well as the tax payers who support them.

As Hoffman and Maynard point out, the birth from teen mothers under the age of 18 cost the taxpayers nearly $4billion annually. The society bears more than twice as much as that (381). But the new studies show that national teen child bearing costs taxpayers $9.1 billion a year in United Stats. Poverty is often a cause as well as a consequence for the teen pregnancy. It is one of the factors most related to early child bearing all over the world (Selman). Among the teen parents, sixty percent of them are living in poverty from their pregnancy and forty percent of the teen mothers are reported to have been living in poverty since their childhood.

A young female from a below average level family is five times more likely to become pregnant than a woman coming from a family above the poverty income. One third of the unwed teenage mothers do not receive any financial help from their parents. And even the strongest problem of poverty with regard to teenage pregnancy is that children born to teenage mothers are more likely to be born underweight. Study on the teenage pregnancy reveals that there are environmental as well as individual risk factors related to the increased teenage pregnancy.

Example for the environmental risk factor is that the teen pregnancy is correlated with the neighborhood where she lives in. Other risk factors related with the environmental condition are the high level of poverty, low level of education, and the high residential turn over. Also families who do not give moral support or supervision become a risk factor. Many individual risk factors cause early childbearing. Some of the individual risk factors are the occurrence of puberty at an early age, chances for getting sexually abused, or having pressure from the partners.

Besides, there are other relatively unimportant reasons, but which at last ends up in teen pregnancy like having violent behavior, having poor academic performance, dating at an early age, dating older partners, consuming alcohols or taking drugs. The attitude of the teenage boys and girls has a crucial role in early child bearing. It is said that the males associated with teen pregnancy think that causing pregnancy is a sign of manhood. Or females who have a tolerant attitude towards sex before marriage or who have a negative attitude in using contraceptives.

As Levkoff reminds, the parents have a great role in making their children aware of the problems of teenage pregnancy. The parents should make sure that their teenagers are not indulged in premarital sex (“Teen Pregnancy-How Parents…”). They should start talking to their children on how to maintain the sexual relationships. It is the parents who mold the morals and decisions of their children with respect to sex. They should always talk to their teenagers and stay close to them asking what they think of their