When it comes to making decisions about sex, teens today are doing far better than they were 20 years ago. Fewer teens are having sex, and among those who are, more teens are using contraception. The happy result is that teen pregnancy and birth rates have declined dramatically. Despite this extraordinary progress, teen pregnancy and childbearing…

Teen childbearing affects young people at both ends of childhood. When teens have children, their own health may be jeopardized and their chances to build productive lives are often diminished. Compared to women who postpone childbearing until they are older, teenage mothers are more likely to drop out of school and to live in poverty. At the same…

Isabel Sawhill, Adam Thomas, and Emily Monea believe that given the well-documented costs of nonmarital births to the children and parents in fragile families, as well as to society as a whole, policy makers' primary goal should be to reduce births to unmarried parents. The authors say that the nation's swiftly rising nonmarital birth rate has…

To mark the 25th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, this edition of "The State of the World's Children" calls for brave and fresh thinking to address age-old problems that still affect the world's most disadvantaged children. The report is inspired by the work of innovators around the world--who are pushing…

This book provides an overview of family planning and fertility in the United States, from the number of babies women have to the risks they face in having them and the measures they choose to avoid pregnancy, to the dollars that would be saved with fewer unwanted pregnancies. Based on the social science literature through mid-1997, which is cited…

The reproductive health of American adolescents has been, and continues to be, a matter of serious concern. America's teen birth rate--already the highest among developed nations--is again on the rise, and rates of sexually transmitted diseases among American teens are very high. As such, the development and identification of effective…

Lowering fertility will require both a reduction in desired family size and provision of family planning services that respond to clients' needs. The World Fertility Survey and the Contraceptive Prevalence Survey found sizable groups of women with an "unmet need" for contraception. Investigators have also found evidence of unanswered…

This research brief focuses on the birth, pregnancy, contraceptive, and relationship behaviors of Hispanic teens because they represent an important risk group. Teen pregnancy and birth rates for U.S. teens have declined dramatically in recent years. Yet for Hispanic teens, reductions in teen pregnancy and childbearing have lagged behind that of…

China and Vietnam currently face excessively high population growth rates. Both countries have recently introduced population education programs, but, for a variety of internal reasons, they are at different stages of development. Since 1980, the Chinese have made progress in experimenting with and implementing new programs, but the Vietnamese are…

In this report, emphasis is placed on major research developments in the reproductive sciences, their impact on the health of individuals as well as on that of society, and on current trends that may provide new opportunities for future research in fertility and infertility. In the first section, major developments in the reproductive sciences are…

This publication reports trends in teen childbearing in the nation, in each state, and in large cities using data from the 2001 National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). Rates of teenage childbearing continue to steadily decline, and the 2001 rates are historic lows for each age group. NCHS data showed that almost 80% of teen births nationwide…

The purpose of this report is to assemble in a single volume the latest available data on current trends and projections of births and enrollments made by various agencies such as the National Center for Education Statistics, the National Center for Health Statistics, the U.S. Bureau of the Census, and others to assist school management in…

World population growth and family planning progress in developing nations are discussed. The Draper Fund, established within the Population Crisis Committee (PCC) in 1975 to honor PCC's principal founder, encourages and funds activities which promise the greatest impact in slowing world population growth. There are 10 articles and an editorial.…

This publication reports trends in teen childbearing in the Nation, in each state, and in large cities using data from the 2000 National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). Rates of teenage childbearing steadily declined during the 1990s, reaching a record low in 2000. Rates declined for both younger and older teens and for blacks, whites, and…

The firing of Stephen Mumford, a leading fertility researcher at Family Health International (Chapel Hill, North Carolina), because he exposed the efforts of the Roman Catholic Church to influence population policy may be the beginning of a new campaign to cripple population-control leaders and institutions. (IS)