- Since funding slashes in 2010, teen pregnancy rates have significantly fallen
- This decline can be seen greatest in areas where the biggest cuts were made
- Critics assumed the disinvestment would in fact encourage a rise in the rates
- Researchers believe the trend is down to a ‘sensible generation’ of teenagers
Stephen Matthews For Mailonline
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Sex education classes and birth control advertising fail to curb teenage pregnancy rates, research suggests.
Instead, they may encourage young people to have unprotected sex which results in unwanted pregnancies.
The findings have emerged following analysis of pregnancy rates after Government funding for a range of schemes designed to promote safe sex was cut.
Budgets were slashed in 2010 and despite criticism at the time that it would have a detrimental impact, the reverse appears to have happened.
The decline in teenage pregnancy rates is greatest in areas where local councils have been forced to make the biggest cuts to such services, experts say.
Experts also believe the trend could be down to many youngsters being part of a ‘sensible generation’ less likely to partake in the type of risky behaviour their parents engaged in, The Times reports.
Since slashing funding to a range of schemes designed to cut teenager pregnancy rates in 2010, the amount has significantly fallen in England (stock)
David Paton and Liam Wright, of the universities of Nottingham and Sheffield respectively, spoke of their findings in the Journal of Health Economics.
They wrote: ‘There are arguments to suggest that the impact [of the cuts] on teenage pregnancy may be not as bad as feared and, indeed, that spending on projects relating to teenage pregnancy may even be counterproductive.
‘There’s less long-term risk-taking behaviour, so these trends might all be of a piece.
‘Put simply, birth control will reduce the risk of pregnancy for sex acts which would have occurred anyway.
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‘But [it] may increase the risk among teenagers who are induced by easier access to birth control either to start having sex or to have sex more frequently.’
Despite only noticing a small effect in their analysis, the findings remained true after the data was thoroughly adjusted.
The researchers assessed the funding of services and the subsequent teenage pregnancy rates of 149 local authorities.
The findings were backed up by a 2009 study that found sex education classes in schools contributed to higher pregnancy rates.
TEENAGE PREGNANCY RATES
Only 21 girls among every 1,000 aged between 15 and 17 became pregnant during 2015 in England and Wales, official figures showed in March.
This is exactly half of the 42 in 1,000 recorded in 2007, according to the Office for National Statistics.
There was a similar fall among the under-16s, with pregnancies for 13 to 15-year-olds falling from 8.1 in every 1,000 to 3.1 over the same period.
The overall number of teen pregnancies in England and Wales for 2015 was 20,351 – the lowest since records began in 1969 – down from 22,653 in 2014.
This was mirrored by a major Cochrane review of sex education classes last year which found they had ‘no apparent effect’.
Before the turn of the century, Britain was faced with some of the highest rates of pregnant adolescents across Europe.
Health officials attempted to combat the problem by giving local councils vast amounts of money.
In response, some decided to open sexual health clinics across schools and fund special classes to curb the rising rates.
Others chose to give young girls the option to freely get the morning-after-pill at their pharmacies.
When implemented in 1999, teen pregnancy rates in England and Wales were around the 42,000 mark. This fluctuated up and down until 2007, when a decreasing trend was starting to appear.
Teenage pregnancy rates in England and Wales have continued to decrease since then, and the overall number in 2015 was 20,351 – the lowest since records began in 1969.
Conceptions among under-18s have halved in just eight years, according to the most recent official statistics published in March.
Experts believe it is because the so-called ‘sensible generation’ are turning away from smoking, drinking, drugs and risky sex.
The decline also coincides with the rise of social media, such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, which has transformed the behaviour of young people. Many now choose to stay indoors and interact with the world through their computer screens.
Researchers have also previously pointed to a stigma that is attached to teenage pregnancy that could also have impacted on the sexual behaviour of young people today.
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