Teen Sexual Activity
Teen Contraceptive Use
Teen Pregnancy Rates
Teen Birth Rates
Why Are Rates of Teen Pregnancy Declining?

Teen Sexual Activity

• In 2005, 47% of high school students (grades 9-12) reported ever having had sexual intercourse, down from 54% in 1991.
  
• Overall, male high school students (48%) were more likely than female students (46%) to have had sex.
  
• In 2005, black high school students were more likely than Hispanic and white students to have ever had sex — 63% of black students, 51% of Hispanics, and 43% of whites.
• Fourteen percent of high school students reported four or more sexual partners in 2005, the same percentage as 2003 and 2001.
  

Teen Contraceptive Use

• Among sexually active high school students, 63% reported that they or their partner used a condom the last time they had sex (up from 53% in 1993).
  
• Among sexually active high school students, 17% reported that they or their partner used birth controls pills before the last time they had sex.

Teen Pregnancy Rates

• Despite impressive declines over the past decade, the United States still has the highest rates of teen pregnancy and births in the industrialized world. Teen pregnancy costs the United States at least $7 billion annually.
  
• There are over 750,000 teen pregnancies annually. Eight in ten of these pregnancies are unintended and 81% are to unmarried teens.
  
• After increasing 23% between 1972 and 1990 to an all-time high, the teen pregnancy rate for girls aged 15-19 declined 36% between 1990 and 2002 (the most recent year that nationally-representative data is available).
  
• Put another way, after reaching 117 pregnancies per 1,000 teens aged 15-19 in 1990, the teen pregnancy rate declined to 75 pregnancies per 1,000 females aged 15-19 in 2002.
  
• Teen pregnancy rates vary among the three largest racial/ethnic groups. Between 1990 and 2002, rates for African-American and non-Hispanic white teens (aged 15-19) declined 40% and 34% respectively. The rate for Hispanics teens aged 15-19 declined 19% during the same time period.

Teen Birth Rates

• After increasing 24% between 1986 and 1991, the teen birth rate for girls aged 15-19 declined 35% between 1991 and 2005.
  
After reaching its highest point in two decades in 1991 (62 births per 1,000 teen girls aged 15-19), the teen birth rate declined to 40 births per 1,000 teen girls aged 15-19 in 2005. (preliminary data)

• Teen birth rates also vary among the three largest racial/ethnic groups. Between 1991 and 2005, the teen birth rate for girls aged 15-19 declined 48% for African Americans, 40% for non-Hispanic whites, and 22% for Hispanics.

(Sources: Hamilton BE, Martin JA, Ventura SJ. Births: Preliminary data for 2005. National vital statistics reports; vol 55. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. Forthcoming.)



Why Are Rates of Teen Pregnancy Declining?

Analysis by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy and other investigators (including the Guttmacher Institute) suggests that both less sex and more contraceptive use are making important contributions to the decline in the teen pregnancy rate.

That is, teen pregnancy rates have been declining because a smaller proportion of teens were having sex and the pregnancy rate among sexually active teens decreased due to better contraceptive use (and also, perhaps, to less sexual activity among those with some sexual experience).

(Source: What’s Behind the Good News: The Decline in Teen Pregnancy Rates During the 1990s, the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy.)

• Teen Sexual Activity
• Teen Pregnancy Rates
• Teen Birth Rates
• All Campaign Fact Sheets