Capstone Project: Teen Pregnancy Tamika Mays SOC490: Social Science Capstone Instructor Staccy Lampkin August 13, 2012 Capstone Project: Teen Pregnancy In today’s society it is very common to see adolescents either pregnant or caring for children when they are still children themselves. Unfortunately, this is the harsh reality that many young adolescents girls are forced to deal with when they engage in unprotected sexual activity. With low levels of maturity and an underdeveloped understanding of responsibility, teens are ill prepared to deal with the consequences of their actions. In recent years the media has portrayed teenage pregnancy as just another obstacle that adolescents may face in their young life. This is why teen pregnancy has become a major social and public health problem in the United States and other countries.
In 2006, the proportion of mothers with newborns that were in the workforce was at 57% (“Working Parents”, 2012). That number increased to 61% in 2008 (“Working Parents”, 2012). There are many single working mothers who have not finished High School or received a GED. This leads to problems down the road. Thirty percent of teenage girls who have dropped out of school listed pregnancy or parenthood as the primary reason (“Teen Pregnancy Prevention”, n.d.).
• In an average classroom of 20 children, there are most likely at least three children who are either victims or bullies. • One-half of motor vehicle accidents involving adolescents are associated with alcohol and other drugs. Methodology: This is a Quantitative study providing seemingly countless statistics, percents, and relationships between children and the “critical issues” they face today. Findings: Although poverty rates have gone down in the last 15 years, with the recent economic downturn, it is anticipated that we will again experience significant increases in children living poverty. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that children, adolescents, and young adults are disproportionately affected by violent injury and death.
Another change that has happened in childbearing since the 1970's is that women are having fewer children and children later in life. Between 1971 and 2005 the average age of a women when having her first child rose by three years. Also the average number of children per family went all the way down to 1.84 in the UK when 30 years back it was 2.95. Women are also choosing to remain childless and a prediction has been made that a quarter of people who were born in 1973 will be childless when they reach 45. This all reflects the changes in society since the 20th century and that women have more options
Outline and explain the reasons for the rise in single parent families in UK society British people are increasingly likely to live in single-parent families, stay at home for longer, marry later and struggle to afford a house. The Office of National Statistics said children in the UK were three times more likely to live in one-parent households than they were in 1972. According to the ONS, since 1971 the proportion of all people living in "nuclear" family households of married couples with children has fallen from 52% to 37%. There are several reasons to why there is a rise in single parent families. More children are born in Britain today outside of marriage than in most other European countries.
For every suicide among young people, there are at least 100 suicide attempts. Over 14 percent of high school students have considered suicide, and almost 7 percent have attempted it. Bully victims are between 2 to 9 times more likely to consider suicide than non-victims, according to studies by Yale University A study in Britain found that at least half of suicides among young people are related to bullying 10 to 14 year old girls may be at even higher risk for suicide, according to the study above According to statistics reported by ABC News, nearly 30 percent of students are either bullies or victims of bullying, and 160,000 kids stay home from school every day because of fear of bullying This is one reason, one out of many on why you should not bully. These people are depressed and from personal experience you are always down and you do not care about anything. Some people don’t care about other people’s feelings.
Teen pregnancy proceeds as a major issue with more than half of all teenagers in the United States stating that they had participated in sexual intercourse at least one point before high school ended. For these reasons, its highly probably for teen pregnancy to happen when one becomes sexually active at a young age and don’t realize the consequences. Teen mothers whom 2 doubtlessly received the proper education are “less likely to complete high school, tend to earn less and are disproportionately poor. About 50 percent of all teen mothers are on welfare within one year of the birth of their first
For Teenagers who fall pregnant, it is difficult to juggle the insecurities of teenage hood with learning basic parenting skills. As a result, teenage parents often consider abortion. Statistics show that New Zealand has one of the highest teenage pregnancy rates in the world, with around fifty girls in every thousand falling pregnant. Of these pregnancies, about half result in abortion. An advantage of putting a parenting licence in place will be to educate these teenagers on basic parenting skills to qualify them to raise a child, avoiding such abortions.
Teenage childbearing is associated with adverse consequences for young mothers and their children, many of which can be attributed to the economically and socially disadvantaged situations in which most adolescent mothers live before becoming pregnant. Often, the disadvantaged backgrounds of young women contribute to poor school performance, weak social skills and low earnings potential, and also increase the likelihood that a young woman will become pregnant as a teen. Teenage childbearing tends to exacerbate the problems of poverty and family instability many young women already face. Early childbearing contributes to lower levels of educational attainment for the adolescent mother and her child, high rates of single parenthood, larger family sizes and increased reliance on public assistance. Connections like these too often are overlooked in efforts to prevent teen pregnancy.
However, open communication between a parent and a teenager can make a big difference in lowering his or her risk of contracting an STD. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, almost half of all high school girls reported that they