For the land of the Fundamentalist Christian to also be the land of the teen pregnancy is quite ironic (if the US does irony), and in fact a look round the "Anglo Saxon" world shows that in second slot is, yep the United Kingdom :-) In fact outside of Sub Saharan Africa (where teen marriage is the norm), it appears that its us and the US that lead the way across the Anglos Saxon world.
- The US has 44 births per 1,000 women aged 15-19.
- The UK has 27 births per 1,000 women aged 15-19.
This UN report lists all the figures in this age group for 2002, and shows the following:
Edited List for the year 2002
1 Niger 233
26 Afghanistan 111
34 Zimbabwe 92
42 Jamaica 79
49 South Africa 66
51 Haiti 64
58 United States 53
66 Turkey 43
68 Bulgaria 41
69 Iraq 38
69 Saudi Arabia 38
69 Ukraine 38
70 Romania 37
72 Armenia 34
73 Georgia 33
76 Russia 30
77 Belarus 27
77 New Zealand 27
78 Estonia 26
78 Lithuania 26
80 Latvia 24
83 Hungary 21
84 United Kingdom 20
85 Croatia 19
88 Australia 16
88 Canada 16
88 Poland 16
89 Ireland 15
90 Austria 12
90 Malta 12
91 Germany 11
91 Norway 11
92 Cyprus 10
92 Greece 10
93 Belgium 9
93 France 9
93 Luxembourg 9
94 Finland 8
94 Slovenia 8
95 Denmark 7
95 Sweden 7
96 Italy 6
96 Singapore 6
96 Spain 6
97 China 5
97 Netherlands 5
97 Switzerland 5
98 Japan 4
99 South Korea 3
The full list is on the link above
Things have evidently got worse in the last 6 years!!
It should be noted that many of the non western countries have large numbers of early marriages e.g. Turkey.
In my opinion, its the casual acceptance in the West, that the state has too pay for, and support, any teenage girls who get pregnant, for life, that lead to these high rates.
Stop welfare and you stop teen pregnancies.
