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Teen birth rates in the US have decreased since the 1950s, but are still higher than other Western countries. US teens are less likely to use contraception, resulting in higher pregnancy rates. The highest teen pregnancy rates in the US are in the District of Columbia and states like New Mexico, Nevada, and Arizona. Overall, pregnancies in the US have declined except for women aged 40 to 44.
The teenage birth rate in the United States has generally declined since the late 1950s, when about 9.6 percent of teenage girls aged 15 to 19 gave birth each year. It hit a low around the mid-2000s, when only about 40 of 1,000 teenage girls ages 15 to 19 gave birth each year, then increased slightly before falling nearly 10 percent from 2009 to 2010, to about 34. births per 1,000 adolescent girls per year. Despite this, teen birth rates in the United States are significantly higher than in other Western countries. As of 2010, teen birth rates in the United States were 1.5 times higher than those in the European country that had the highest teen birth rate, the United Kingdom, and about nine times higher than countries that had lowest adolescent birth rates, such as the Netherlands and other Scandinavian countries.
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Studies have shown that teens across the Western world have similar levels of sexual activity, but those in the United States tend to get pregnant far more often because they’re less likely to use contraception than teens in other nations.
As of 2010, the place in the United States that had the highest pregnancy rates among girls ages 15 to 19 was the District of Columbia, which had a 16.5% annual teen pregnancy rate. States that had high teen pregnancy rates included New Mexico, Nevada, and Arizona, which had teen birth rates of 9.3, 9, and 8.9%, respectively, in 2010.
Pregnancies in women of all ages in the United States have declined since 2007, except for women aged 40 to 44. The age group that had the highest pregnancy rate in 2012 was between 25 and 29 years old.
