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| South Australia has the highest number of income dependent single parent families (76.2 %) than any other state, although no current statistics are available for parenting adolescents (Australian Bureau of Statistics 1999, Children Australia: A Social Report, cited in YACSA State Budget Submission 1999/2000).
Statistics from the Pregnancy Outcome Unit (South Australian Health Commission, 1999), show a decline in the number of teenage confinements, 7.8% to 5.4% between 80's and late 90's. Data also shows the number of adolescent births has remained relatively stable during this period. However the rate of teenage pregnancies and abortions have increased during the 90's after a period of low levels in the late eighties (South Australian Health Commission, 1999). In 1997, 54% of teenage pregnancies were aborted, compared with 23% for all age groups. The rate of teenage abortions has exceeded teenage births since 1995.
Since 1971 there has been a significant decline in the number of adolescent births from 30,000 to less than 13,000 in 1994 (Lindsay Harrison & Dickinson, 1999).
The statistics on maternal age, found that Aboriginal mothers were generally younger and a higher proportion were teenagers, 23.4% compared with 5.1% from Caucasian backgrounds (South Australian Health Commission, 1999 p 10). In 1991 the fertility rate for indigenous teenagers, was four times greater than non-indigenous females.
According to Lindsay et al (1999), this could be attributed to a combination of social and cultural factors, such as viewing teenage pregnancy as a cultural 'norm' amongst Aboriginal people. In 1997 Aboriginal pregnancies accounted for 2% of confinements in South Australia, and their perinatal mortality rate was three times greater than non-Aboriginal mothers (32.5 per 1000 births, compared with 10.1 per 1000 births).
America has the highest rate of teenage pregnancy and births than any other developed country. The current annual rate according to Alan Guttmacher Institute (1997), is 112 pregnancies per 1,000 adolescents, with nearly 25% ending in abortions (Lopez, Westoff, Perrin, & Remmel, 1995) cited in Mayfield Arnold, Smith, Harrison & Springer, (1999). |
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