Teenage pregnancy in the United Kingdom refers to the rate at which people under 20 fall pregnant in the United Kingdom. As of 2021, the rate of teenage conceptions in the United Kingdom was 5.226% percent of total conceptions, whereas 2.199% of all live births in the United Kingdom were to mothers under 20 years of age. The rate of teenage pregnancy is relatively high when compared with other developed countries; the only other Western countries with higher teenage pregnancy rates are the United States and New Zealand. However, rates have rapidly decreased since then. A report in 2002 found that around half of all conceptions to under-18s were concentrated among the 30% most economically deprived population, with only 14% occurring among the 30% least deprived. The 2008 underage conception rate in England and Wales was 13% lower than in 1998. Over 60% of the conceptions led to a legal abortion, the highest proportion since conception statistics began in 1969. Other studies have shown similar findings.
Comparative pregnancy rate The Labour government elected in 1997 pledged to halve the number of conceptions to girls under 18 by 2010, but by 2008 the drop was only 13%, a level the Secretary of State for Children Ed Balls called 'disappointing', dropping by 9.5% from 2009 to 2010 despite an overall increase in fertility. By 2014, the under-18 conception rate in England had dropped to 22.9 per 1,000, approximately half the 1997 figure of 45.9.
Change in pregnancy rate over time Births to many teenagers increased during the 1960s and peaked in 1971 at 50.6 per thousand of the population. After 1971, they gradually fell to their lowest level since the mid-1950s. The proportion occurring outside marriage increased from around one-in-six in the 1950s to about nine-in-ten in 2006. The abortion rate in England and Wales in 2015 was 9.9 per 1,000 women under 18, down from 17.8 in 2005.
Geographic variation in pregnancy rate High teenage pregnancy rates are found in areas with low GCSE examination success, such as Nottingham, Kingston upon Hull, Doncaster, Barnsley, Middlesbrough, Manchester (highest), Nuneaton, Sandwell, Bristol, Stoke on Trent, Bradford, North East Lincolnshire, and Blackpool. In 1997, a study revealed that there was a north–south divide in England in the rate of conceptions to under-18s, with the highest rates and proportion leading to maternity being in the north, and the lowest rates with the highest proportion leading to abortion, being in the south, with the exception of London, which had high rates of both conception and abortion.
Pregnancies
Abortions 1967: Abortion was legalised in England, Wales and Scotland under the Abortion Act. The first legal abortions were performed on 27 April 1968. 1969: Over 9,500 teenage girls (over 1,200 being under 16) opted for an abortion in England, Wales & Scotland in the first full year of legal abortion, (almost one in five of all abortions) the majority of whom were single. A survey of women seeking an abortion by the British Pregnancy Advisory Service revealed that almost two-fifths of parents of single, pregnant, teenage girls were unaware of their daughters' pregnancy, the majority of these being to teenagers who were not living at home. 1982: In a court ruling, a pregnant fifteen-year-old girl who had been pregnant once before was allowed to have an abortion against the wishes of her father, who did not want her to have one on religious and moral grounds. This is believed to be the first known case in Britain where an under-age girl was able to obtain a legal abortion without the consent of her parent/s. 2006: Mother of two teenage daughters Sue Axon lost her battle in the high court to try and prevent under-age girls from seeking an abortion without their parents' permission. Figures revealed that there were 4,352 abortions in Britain to under-16s, up five percent on 2005. 2008: The number of girls under 16 having an abortion reached a record level of 4,376 girls (4.4 per thousand of the population) in England and Wales during 2007. The number and rate fell slightly in 2008. 2007 statistics showed that the younger the age of the women at abortion the more likely it was to be in the second trimester. Seventeen per cent of abortions to girls aged under 14 were over twelve weeks gestation compared to almost 9% for women aged over 34. Statistics from the Department Of Health for the three-year period 2006 to 2008 showed that the area with the highest rate of abortion in girls under 16 in England and Wales was in the Southwark Primary Care Organisation (PCO) at a rate of 9.2 per 1000 girls in the population aged 13–15. Approximately seven-out-of-ten of the areas with the highest rate were in London. Outside London, the PCOs with the highest rates were Darlington (8.0), Manchester (7.3) and Hartlepool (7.2). The rate for the whole of England & Wales was 4.1.
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