Teenage Pregnancy. The increase numbers of children being born to teenage mothers is one of the more worrying trends in the UK and US. This is because far more children of teenagers are born into poverty and welfare dependence than babies born to older parents. Teen childbearing is very costly. A 1997 study by Rebecca Maynard of Mathematica Policy Research in Princeton, New Jersey, found that, after controlling for differences between teen mothers and mothers aged 20 or 21 when they had their first child, teen childbearing costs taxpayers more than $7 billion a year or $3,200 a year for each teenage birth, conservatively estimated. "What Can Be Done to Reduce Teen Pregnancy and Out-of-Wedlock Births?" by Isabel Sawhill discusses American attempts to reduce teenage pregnancy rates through a variety of programmes.

By Brookings Institution, US.

Health Policy Resource.