Teenage pregnancy – an old problem in the US, a new issue in China
Wang Yannan
Academic Writing Skills
Group 15
Dymond Ayre
October 3, 2006
Abstract
Teenage pregnancy has been a serious social problem all over the world these years. This paper discusses the teenage pregnancy rates in both the US and China. It briefly talks about the situation of teenage pregnancy in both countries. Two points are being argued: the rate of teenage pregnancy rate has declined in the US, but it remains very high; and the rate of teenage pregnancy is on the rise in China. Analysis of why the rate declines but remains high in the US and why it rises in China is also given in the paper. It is followed by a comparison between the situation in the US and China. Finally, this paper concludes with an overall summary of the issue and the conclusion of the causes discussed in the paper.

Teenage pregnancy – an old problem in the US, a new issue in China
Introduction
When mentioned about teenage pregnancy 10 years ago, most of us must think that it mainly happens in the US; while China is never taken into consideration. However, now, ten years later, you can no longer think so. The problem is concerned in both the US and China, and is becoming worldwide. In the US, although owing to some effective programs and better sex education teenage pregnancy rate has declined during the past twenty years, statistics show that the US still has the highest rate of teenage pregnancy compared with other fully industrialized countries, such as the Netherlands. The situation in China is by no means better. Researches show that Teenage pregnancy, which may have never been heard of by many Chinese, is on the rise in China. There are many causes of the remaining high rate in the US and the recent rising rate in China. Although much work had been done, and some have been effective in a way, obstacles remain in both countries.

Body
What is teenage pregnancy? “Teenagers” is a very diverse social group. Their beliefs, attitudes and behaviors differ from each other due to different education, experiences and social backgrounds. As teenager, young people have great curiosity about mysteries in life, especially the sensitive topic – sex. Without proper education and guidance, it will be easy for them to get delusory. Thus, it may lead to unintended results, like teenage pregnancy. Teenage pregnancy occurs when a female has reached puberty and is 19 years old or younger become pregnant (Martin, 1999, para. 1). The vulnerable young people are usually those who leave in deprived areas, who are offenders or who are homeless. What may cause teenage pregnancy? It is often a result of having sexual intercourse without contraceptive use. Teenage pregnancy is always associated with poor education achievement, lack of sexual health knowledge and responsibility, social deprivation and family’s negative influence. Teenage pregnancy can bring a lot of problems. First, it is bad for teenagers. Since they are not physically or mentally prepared, pregnancy may bring serious health risks to them. In addition, most teen moms can not finish their high school or higher education since they have to take care of their babies. Moreover, statistics show that 81% of births among teens are unmarried (Endersbe, 2000a, p. 40). This indicates that most teen moms will have to suffer single parenthood. It will be very difficult for them to raise their children, because they do not know enough about parenting and they may have financial problems since they can not easily find a job. Second, it is bad for the baby. Most babies born by teenagers can not get good parental care. They may even be abused. Researches also show that children with adolescent often have poor school performances and some of them suffer form discrimination. Third, it is bad for our society because it brings other critical issues, such as poverty and lower education achievement.

What’s the situation in the US? Teenage pregnancy in the US has always been a serious problem and is considered linked to other social issues. In order to prevent the situation from becoming worse, governments has carried out many measures including setting up organizations to reduce the rate of teenage pregnancy, propagandizing knowledge and skills about sex, encouraging communications between parents and teenagers, requiring better sexuality education in school, disseminating contraceptive use, setting up communities that give pregnant teenagers guidance and help and building up services related to pregnancy and STDs (Sexually Transmitted Diseases) prevention. Due to the diversiform programs the US government has taken out in preventing teenage pregnancy, the rate of teenage pregnancy has declined during the past 10 years. We can see sharp decreases in the teenage pregnancy rate among those who ever has sexual intercourse. From 1990 to 2002, the rate has declined 28 percent (The National Campaign to Prevent Teenage Pregnancy, 2005). meanwhile, from 1986 to 2002, the proportion of teenage pregnancies ending in abortion also declined more than one-quarter from 46% to 34% of pregnancies among 15–19-year-olds. By 2002, the teenage abortion rate had dropped by 50 percent from its peak in 1988 (Guttmacher Institute, 2006, p. 2). All the efforts have been effective in some way and have helped prevent teenage pregnancy in the US. However, the rate of teenage pregnancy remains the highest among the fully industrialized countries. The proportion of sex experienced teen who get pregnant or cause pregnancy is still surprisingly high, which is, for instance, twice as high as Great Britain and almost ten times as high as the Netherlands (Mark, 2005, p. 281). Statistics show that nearly one million (almost one third, 31%) sexual experienced girls become pregnant each year in the US (Endersbe, 2000b, p. 7). Into the bargain, the population of teen girls aged 15-19 is expected to increase 10 percent between 2000 and 2010, which means “even declining rates may not necessarily mean fewer numbers of teen pregnancies and births.” (Kirby, 2001, p. 3) Why it remains high? There are several reasons. First, although sexual education has been promoted for a long time, statistic shows that there are still a lot of teenagers having wrong understanding or attitude towards sex. Many of them wrongly consider it the only way to show their love. While they are enjoying the pleasure and closeness, they forget the risks and consequences that unprotected sex will bring to them. Second, not enough knowledge about contraceptive use were taught to students. According to the PARADE survey, sixty percent of the surveyed do not know about contraceptives; only 45 percent know how to use contraception correctively; and 70 percent said it was embarrassing to buy condoms and uncomfortable to ask doctors about birth control (The National Campaign to Prevent Teenage Pregnancy, 2005b, para. 10). Third, programs conducted on preventing teenage pregnancy are not as efficient as they were expected to be. Only 17% of them have been effective in some way, while half of them result in no changes in preventing teenage pregnancy (Franklin, 1997, p. 551–567; and DiCenso, 2002, p. 1426–1434). Lack of communication between parents and children is another reason. Most parents show a point of view that they have difficulties talking openly and honestly with their children about sex. In a national wide survey done by National Campaign to Prevent Teenage pregnancy, it shows that 87 percent of teens think it will be easier for them to postpone sexual activity and avoid pregnancy if they could have more open and honest conversations with their parents, however, 37 percent of them say that they have never had a single conversation about sex with their parents (The National Campaign to Prevent Teenage Pregnancy, 2005c, para. 4&5). Since teenagers can not get enough information from their parents, many of them turn to friends and media that may not be that reliable. More than 20,000 sexual messages were aired each year, most of which do not promote protected sex activities, unintended pregnancy or diseases prevention (Endersbe, 2000a, p. 9). Thus it may lead to misunderstanding about the topic.

What’s the situation in China? Quite contrary to the situation in the US, teenage pregnancy in China is the issue which emerges just in the recent ten years. In the past, Chinese people are very conservative. They felt shameful to talk about sex, no matter in pubic or private. Women would be considered profligate, if they have close relationships with men. In ancient times, they were even not allowed to talk with other men if their husbands were not around. They were also expected to keep virgin until they got married. If not, it will bring them bad fame and also bring shame to their families. So maybe because of this traditional concept that it will be considered taboo to talk about sex and the conservative attitude toward sex, teenage pregnancy seldom happened or even heard of in China during the last century. Or maybe, teenage pregnancy did exist, but on account of the government’s control and restriction, media were not allowed to report it and not much research had been done to study this issue. No matter what the situation was in the past, now, researches show that teenage pregnancy rate is on the rise in China. First, it is reflected in the increasing rate of premarital sexual activity that teenagers have engaged in. A survey conducted in 1989 showed that only 13% of male and 6% of female college students had had premarital sex; in 1999, by contrast, 24% of male and 12% of female seniors in a Guangzhou high school reported that they had had premarital sex (Wang, B. & Hertog, S. & Meier, A. & Lou, C. & Gao, G, 2005, p. 63). More and more teenagers are becoming sexual active. Without proper education and self-restraint, or in other words, abstinence, they will probably take risks to take part in sexual intercourses. As a result of lacking the knowledge of sex and correct contraceptive use, they are more easily to get pregnant. We can also see the increase from the abortion rates among teenagers. In Chongqing, a survey had been carried out by the Family Planning Research Centre. The results show that teenage girls make up 34 percent of all abortions at the hospitals, 13 percent higher than it was three years ago (Anonymous, 2003, para. 7). These statistics warns that teenage pregnancy is on the rise.

What leads to the rise of teenage pregnancy rates in China? What may be the cause of it? Having looked back to what has happened in China during the last 50 years, you will find it is not difficult to find the answers. First, it is a result of sex revolution. Today, young people are much more open-minded. In China, the youth are increasingly open to more liberal ideas about dating and relationships. However, they do not know how to deal with these mixed information. Thus, it may lead to premarital sexual activities. Influence of mass media and western culture also plays a very important role in this issue. “Of the 2,000 high-school students surveyed in 2002 by the Children and Youth Health Research Centre of Peking University, 56 per cent said they confided nothing to their parents, and more than 82 per cent admitted they had learned about sex from TV programs or other media” (Anonymous, 2003, para. 7). We can see clearly that media greatly influence teenagers understanding and attitude about sex. As a result of China’s “Open Door Policy”, western cultures are spread to teenagers through books, magazines, music, movies, whereas different ideas about sex are promoted by those publications. Despite all these cultural and historical reasons, “ teenagers curiosity and need for sex have not been attached enough attention from the government and society; it is hard to use media to disseminates scientific knowledge about sex due to the limitation of traditional culture background and customs; effective organization and education system have not been formed to offer correct information and services about sexual health.” are also very important causes of this problem as the secretary-general of the Birth Control Association of China Li Baozhong has pointed out (Fan, 2003, para. 4).

Comparison

Having looked at the situation of teenage pregnancy in both the US and China, we can find there are a lot of differences as well as similarities. By examining both of them, we may have a better understanding of the problem.

The differences: The teenage pregnancy rate declines in the US, while it rises in China. This is due to many differences of the situation in these two countries. First, compared with that in China, contraceptives are more widely used among teenagers in the US. 3/4 of American teenagers use some contraceptive methods the first time the have intercourse (Endersbe, 2000, p. 50). On the contrary, survey shows that it is only 5% in China (Fan, 2003, para. 2). Second, teenagers in the US receive more and better education about sex. In America 2/3 of public school districts have a policy to teach sexuality education, and the remaining 1/3 leave it up to individual schools or teachers (Guttmacher Institute, 2002, para. 8). In China, a survey find out that 1/3 of middle school students says they have never had any sex education (Anonymous, 2004, para. 14). Third, teenage pregnancy in China has just emerged in recent 10 years. So, it is a new problem to China. The country does not have any experiences in dealing with this issue. It is still on the way learning and finding methods to prevent it. In contrast, the US has already done a lot of researches on this topic and is now carrying out complex methods to cut the teenage pregnancy rate effectively. Besides, in the US, teenage pregnancy is viewed as an important social issue and many methods have been carried out, however in China, the issue has not received enough recognition from the government. The similarities: First, in spite of the decline and rise in the teenage pregnancy rates, teenage pregnancy remains a serious problem in both countries. In both the US and China, teenage pregnancy links to other critical issues, such as poverty, low education achievement, welfare dependency, poor workforce development and so on. As a result, teenage pregnancy will impede the development of society. Second, students in both countries say that they do not get enough information about safe sexual intercourse and contraceptive use to prevent pregnancy. 80 percent of teens in the US (The National Campaign to Prevent Teenage Pregnancy, 2005c, para. 9) and 89.2 percent of teens in China (Anonymous, 2003, para. 23) do not think they have got enough information about sex and contraception. Third, parents in both countries do not have enough communication with their children. Most of the teenagers in China dare not to tell their parents or teachers when they got pregnant. For fear of punishment, they turn to back-street abortionists. This leads to even more serious consequences. Parents also feel strange to talk about sex with their children. The situation is better in the US, but statistics show that even though most parents believe that they should talk to their children about sex, 90 percent of them say that they do not know what to talk about and how to talk about it (The National Campaign to Prevent Teenage Pregnancy, 2005c, para. 6). Different obstacles: Compared with the US, the main obstacle for Chinese government is owing to its traditional cultural background and concept about sex. Although in this “knowledge-driven economy” era, to many Chinese, sex is still something shameful or dirty to talk about. Due to the traditional concept and the conservative character of Chinese, many parents do not talk with their children about sex, since they think it will corrupt their children’s mind. Some teachers also hold the idea that promoting sex education will also promote teenagers’ sexual activities. This makes it harder for the government to develop sex education in China. In the US, the main obstacle is that having sex has already been considered very common among American teenagers. Moreover, it has become a tradition or custom for high school students to have sex in their graduate parties. Undeniable, peer pressure has a great influence in this case. As a result, it becomes very difficult for the government to shift teenagers’ attitude towards sex.
Conclusion
When cheering on the achievement we have made in developing our society, we should not forget the problem coming along with it--teenage pregnancy. Many things have been down to change the situation, and some of them have been effective in some way, nonetheless, the teenage pregnancy remains a worrisome issue all over the world. In the US, although the teenage pregnancy rate has declined during the past 10 years, it remains the highest among fully industrialized countries. This is because of the remaining poor understanding about sex and contraceptive use among teenagers, inefficient programs in preventing teenage pregnancy and the lack of communication between teenagers and parents. In China, due to the influence of sex revolution, limitation of cultural background, negative influences from media and western culture, poor sex education, not enough recognition from the government and less organizations, the rate of the newly emerging problem—teenage pregnancy, is rising very quickly in the country. Having examined the situation in both the US and China, we can see that there are still a lot to be done in order to prevent teenage pregnancy. “It’s always better to push the brake before the car crashes” (Anonymous, 2006, para. 32).
References
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