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Teenage pregnancy is defined as a teenaged or underaged girl (usually within the ages of 13–19) becoming pregnant. The term in everyday speech usually refers to women who have not reached legal adulthood, which varies across the world, who become pregnant.

Data supporting teenage pregnancy as a social issue in developed countries include lower educational levels, higher rates of poverty, and other poorer "life outcomes" in children of teenage mothers. Teenage pregnancy in developed countries is usually outside of marriage, and carries a social stigma in many communities and cultures. For these reasons, there have been many studies and campaigns which attempt to uncover the causes and limit the numbers of teenage pregnancies. In other countries and cultures, particularly in the developing world, teenage pregnancy is usually within marriage and does not involve a social stigma. Among OECD developed countries, the United States and United Kingdom have the highest level of teenage pregnancy, while Japan and South Korea have the lowest.

Global incidence

Live births per 1000 women 15–19 years old, 2002:

Country	Teenage birth rate per 1000 women 15–19
South Korea	3
Japan	4
China	5
Switzerland	5
Netherlands	5
Spain	6
Singapore	6
Italy	6
Sweden	7
Denmark	7
Slovenia	8
Finland	8
Luxembourg	9
France	9
Belgium	9
Greece	10
Cyprus	10
Norway	11
Germany	11
Malta	12
Austria	12
Ireland	15
Poland	16
Canada	16
Australia	16
Albania	16
Portugal	17
Israel	17
Czech Republic	17
Iceland	19
Croatia	19
United Kingdom	20
Hungary	21
Bosnia and Herzegovina	23
Slovakia	24
Latvia	24
Lithuania	26
Estonia	26
New Zealand	27
Belarus	27
Russia	30
Georgia	33
Macedonia	34
Armenia	34
Romania	37
Ukraine	38
Saudi Arabia	38
Bulgaria	41
Chile	44
Brazil	45
United States	53
Indonesia	55
Mexico	64
South Africa	66
India	73
Nigeria	103
Niger	233

Save the Children found that, annually, 13 million children are born to women under age 20 worldwide, more than 90% in developing countries. Complications of pregnancy and childbirth are the leading cause of mortality among women between the ages of 15 and 19 in such areas. The highest rate of teenage pregnancy in the world is in sub-Saharan Africa, where women tend to marry at an early age. In Niger, for example, 87% of women surveyed were married and 53% had given birth to a child before the age of 18.

In the Indian subcontinent, early marriage sometimes means adolescent pregnancy, particularly in rural regions where the rate is much higher than it is in urbanized areas. The rate of early marriage and pregnancy has decreased sharply in Indonesia and Malaysia, although it remains relatively high. In the industrialized Asian nations such as South Korea and Singapore, teenage birth rates are among the lowest in the world.

The overall trend in Europe since 1970 has been a decreasing total fertility rate, an increase in the age at which women experience their first birth, and a decrease in the number of births among teenagers. Most continental Western European countries have very low teenage birth rates. This is varyingly attributed to good sex education and high levels of contraceptive use (in the case of the Netherlands and Scandinavia), traditional values and social stigmatization (in the case of Spain and Italy) or both (in the case of Switzerland).

The teenage birth rate in the United States is the highest in the developed world, and the teenage abortion rate is also high. The U.S. teenage pregnancy rate was at a high in the 1950s and has decreased since then, although there has been an increase in births out of wedlock. The teenage pregnancy rate decreased significantly in the 1990s; this decline manifested across all racial groups, although teenagers of African-American and Hispanic descent retain a higher rate, in comparison to that of European-Americans and Asian-Americans. The Guttmacher Institute attributed about 25% of the decline to abstinence and 75% to the effective use of contraceptives. However, in 2006 the teenage birth rate rose for the first time in fourteen years. This could imply that teen pregnancy rates are also on the rise, however the rise could also be due to other sources: a possible decrease in the number of abortions or a decrease in the number of miscarriages, to name a few. The Canadian teenage birth has also trended towards a steady decline for both younger (15–17) and older (18–19) teens in the period between 1992–2002.

Socioeconomic factors

Poverty is associated with increased rates of teenage pregnancy. Economically poor countries such as Niger and Bangladesh have far more teenage mothers compared with economically rich countries such as Switzerland and Japan.

In the UK, around half of all pregnancies to under 18s are concentrated among the 30% most deprived population, with only 14% occurring among the 30% least deprived. In Italy, the teenage birth rate in the well-off central regions is only 3.3 per 1,000, while in the poorer Mezzogiorno it is 10.0 per 1000. Sociologist Mike A. Males noted that teenage birth rates closely mapped poverty rates in California:

Teen pregnancy costs the United States over $7 billion annually.

* per 1000 women aged 15–19

There is little evidence to support the common belief that teenage mothers become pregnant to get benefits, welfare, and council housing. Most knew little about housing or financial aid before they got pregnant and what they thought they knew often turned out to be wrong.

Childhood environment

Women exposed to abuse, domestic violence, and family strife in childhood are more likely to become pregnant as teenagers, and the risk of becoming pregnant as a teenager increases with the number of adverse childhood experiences. According to a 2004 study, one-third of teenage pregnancies could be prevented by eliminating exposure to abuse, violence, and family strife. The researchers note that "family dysfunction has enduring and unfavorable health consequences for women during the adolescent years, the childbearing years, and beyond." When the family environment does not include adverse childhood experiences, becoming pregnant as an adolescent does not appear to raise the likelihood of long-term, negative psychosocial consequences. Studies have also found that boys raised in homes with a battered mother, or who experienced physical violence directly, were significantly more likely to impregnate a girl.

Studies have also found that girls whose fathers left the family early in their lives had the highest rates of early sexual activity and adolescent pregnancy. Girls whose fathers left them at a later age had a lower rate of early sexual activity, and the lowest rates are found in girls whose fathers were present throughout their childhood. Even when the researchers took into account other factors that could have contributed to early sexual activity and pregnancy, such as behavioral problems and life adversity, early father-absent girls were still about five times more likely in the United States and three times more likely in New Zealand to become pregnant as adolescents than were father-present girls.

Low educational expectations have been pinpointed as a risk factor. A girl is also more likely to become a teenage parent if her mother or older sister gave birth in her teens. A majority of respondents in a 1988 Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies survey attributed the occurrence of adolescent pregnancy to a breakdown of communication between parents and child and also to inadequate parental supervision.

Foster care youth are more likely than their peers to become pregnant as teenagers. The National Casey Alumni Study, which surveyed foster care alumni from 23 communities across the United States, found the birth rate for girls in foster care was more than double the rate of their peers outside the foster care system. A University of Chicago study of youth transitioning out of foster care in Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin found that nearly half of the females had been pregnant by age 19. The Utah Department of Human Services found that girls who had left the foster care system between 1999 and 2004 had a birth rate nearly 3 times the rate for girls in the general population.

Socioeconomic and psychological outcomes

Several studies have examined the socioeconomic, medical, and psychological impact of pregnancy and parenthood in teens. Life outcomes for teenage mothers and their children vary; other factors, such as poverty or social support, may be more important than the age of the mother at the birth. Many solutions to counteract the more negative findings have been proposed. Teenage parents who can use family and community support, social services and child-care support to continue their education and get higher paying jobs as they progress with their education.

Impact on the mother

Being a young mother in an industrialized country can affect one's education. Teen mothers are more likely to drop out of high school. Recent studies, though, have found that many of these mothers had already dropped out of school prior to becoming pregnant, but those in school at the time of their pregnancy were as likely to graduate as their peers. One study in 2001 found that women who gave birth during their teens completed secondary-level schooling 10–12% as often and pursued post-secondary education 14–29% as often as women who waited until age 30.

Young motherhood in an industrialized country can affect employment and social class. Less than one third of teenage mothers receive any form of child support, vastly increasing the likelihood of turning to the government for assistance. The correlation between earlier childbearing and failure to complete high school reduces career opportunities for many young women. One study found that, in 1988, 60% of teenage mothers were impoverished at the time of giving birth. Additional research found that nearly 50% of all adolescent mothers sought social assistance within the first five years of their child's life. A study of 100 teenaged mothers in the United Kingdom found that only 11% received a salary, while the remaining 89% were unemployed. Most British teenage mothers live in poverty, with nearly half in the bottom fifth of the income distribution. Teenage women who are pregnant or mothers are seven times more likely to commit suicide than other teenagers. Professor John Ermisch at the institute of social and economic research at Essex University and Dr Roger Ingham, director of the centre of sexual health at Southampton University – found that comparing teenage mothers with other girls with similarly deprived social-economic profiles, bad school experiences and low educational aspirations, the difference in their respective life chances was negligible.

Teenage Motherhood may actually make economic sense for poorer young women, some research suggests. For instance, long-term studies by Duke economist V. Joseph Hotz and colleagues, published in 2005, found that by age 35, former teen moms had earned more in income, paid more in taxes, were substantially less likely to live in poverty and collected less in public assistance than similarly poor women who waited until their 20s to have babies. Women who became mothers in their teens — freed from child-raising duties by their late 20s and early 30s to pursue employment while poorer women who waited to become moms were still stuck at home watching their young children — wound up paying more in taxes than they had collected in welfare. Eight years earlier, the federally commissioned report "Kids Having Kids" also contained a similar finding, though it was buried: "Adolescent childbearers fare slightly better than later-childbearing counterparts in terms of their overall economic welfare."

One-fourth of adolescent mothers will have a second child within 24 months of the first. Factors that determine which mothers are more likely to have a closely-spaced repeat birth include marriage and education: the likelihood decreases with the level of education of the young woman – or her parents – and increases if she gets married.

Impact on the child

Early motherhood can affect the psychosocial development of the infant. The occurrence of developmental disabilities and behavioral issues is increased in children born to teen mothers. One study suggested that adolescent mothers are less likely to stimulate their infant through affectionate behaviors such as touch, smiling, and verbal communication, or to be sensitive and accepting toward his or her needs. Another found that those who had more social support were less likely to show anger toward their children or to rely upon punishment.

Poor academic performance in the children of teenage mothers has also been noted, with many of them being more likely than average to fail to graduate from secondary school, be held back a grade level, or score lower on standardized tests. Daughters born to adolescent parents are more likely to become teen mothers themselves. A son born to a young woman in her teens is three times more likely to serve time in prison.

Teenage fatherhood

In some cases, the father of the child is the husband of the teenage girl. The conception may occur within wedlock, or the pregnancy itself may precipitate the marriage (the so-called shotgun wedding). In countries such as India the majority of teenage births occur within marriage.

In other countries, such as the United States and the Republic of Ireland, the majority of teenage mothers are not married to the fathers of their children. In the UK, half of all teenagers with children are lone parents, 40% are cohabitating as a couple and 10% are married. Teenage parents are frequently in a romantic relationship at the time of birth, but many adolescent fathers do not stay with the mother and this often disrupts their relationship with the child. Research has shown that when teenage fathers are included in decision-making during pregnancy and birth, they are more likely to report increased involvement with their children in later years. In the U.S, eight out of ten teenage fathers do not marry their child's mother.

However, "teenage father" may be a misnomer in many cases. Studies by the Population Reference Bureau and the National Center for Health Statistics found that about two-thirds of births to teenage girls in the United States are fathered by adult men age 20 or older. The Guttmacher Institute reports that over 40 percent of mothers aged 15–17 had sexual partners three to five years older and almost one in five had partners six or more years older. A 1990 study of births to California teens reported that the younger the mother, the greater the age gap with her male partner. In the UK 72% of jointly registered births to women under the age of 20, the father is over the age of 20, with almost 1 in 4 being over 25.

Pre-20th century

• Medieval Queen of England Eleanor of Provence was 14, 16 and 17 years old when she gave birth to her first three children by her husband King Henry III of England: Edward I of England, Margaret of England and Beatrice of England respectively. She and Henry also had two additional children born several years later: Edmund of Lancaster and Katherine.
• Mary de Bohun, the first wife of Henry IV of England gave birth to her first child Edward at the age of 13. Although Edward did not survive infancy, she had six additional children with her husband before dying in childbirth from her last child, Philippa of England.
• At the age of 13, Lady Margaret Beaufort gave birth to her only child, who later became Henry VII of England.
• Napoleon's mother, Letizia Ramolino, gave birth to five children before she was 20. Only two of them survived: Napoleon and his elder brother Joseph Bonaparte.
• Sacagawea, translator and guide to Lewis and Clark, gave birth to her son Jean Baptiste Charbonneau in 1805, while on expedition, and traveled with him to the Pacific Ocean and back. Although Sacagawea's exact birth date is unknown , she was around 17 years old at the time of the birth.

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