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Monday, June 14, 1999 Published at 10:26 GMT 11:26 UK
Labour chooses 'Third Way' on teen pregnancy
British teenagers are more likely to get pregnant than their European counterparts
The BBC's Social Affairs Editor Niall Dickson analyses the implications of the social
exclusion unit's report on teenage pregnancies.
Caught between a strong liberal lobby anxious to promote safer sex and a strong
traditional lobby anxious to discourage promiscuity among the young, the government has
once again sought to find a 'third way'.
Its measures are designed to encourage young people to meet their responsibilities while
avoiding the moralising and punitive tone which is felt to alienate many young people.
Teenage pregnancy is largely a social problem affecting the poor - young girls in social
class five are 10 times more likely to become pregnant than their counterparts in the top
social group.
The girls who have babies young are much more likely to have low academic attainment, much
more likely to have low self esteem and poor career prospects.
The government's strategy therefore is designed both to bring down the rate of teenage
conceptions and to support young mothers in ways that will lift them and their children
out of a life of dependency.
Pragmatic approach
To reduce conceptions the plan is to improve sex education in schools with the aim not so
much of discouraging teenagers from having sex but of making them aware of the dangers of
unprotected intercourse and the advantages of delaying sexual experience.
It is clearly a pragmatic approach - the unknown is whether better sex education and large
scale publicity really will change behaviour significantly, even if contraception is made
more widely available - the fact that other countries with better sex education programmes
have lower rates of teenage pregnancies is encouraging but the real causes may well be
more deep rooted. Unless the life chances of these young women are changed
dramatically, sex education on its own is unlikely to bring the pregnancy rate down.
Council flats
The measures announced on Monday do include new ways of supporting teenage mothers that
are meant to break the cycle of dependence - the most controversial of which is the plan
to stop the under 18s being placed in council flats where they tend to become isolated.
In future, those not living at home will be expected to live in supported hostels where
they can be taught parenting skills and given child care and training to enable them to
find a job.
There have been suggestions in the past that young girls have deliberately become pregnant
to get a flat.
There is no evidence to support such a crude calculation, but the charge does contain a
germ of truth inasmuch as the arrival of a baby to a young girl with little going for her
does confer status, giving her and her peers the illusion that she is an independent
adult. This may not be why she became pregnant, although it may affect her
decision to keep the baby.
'Tough love'
So within the government strategy there is an element of 'tough love' - the hostels are
not portrayed as punishment, but ministers are anxious that the message gets out that life
is difficult as a young parent and that more often than not it is an undesirable state.
Interestingly, in Holland there is stigma associated with teenage
parenthood - those who become pregnant are regarded as 'pathetic' by many of their peers.
[Editor: Be sure to read other articles that talk about Holland's liberal attitude and increase in underage sex such as Teenage girls 'having sex earlier']
So the New Labour refrain of 'responsibility' will be heard loud and clear with a message
directed at boys as much girls.
The Child Support Agency will be warning boys that the days when they could father
children and escape the financial consequences
are numbered.
The approach adopted by the government will not please those liberals who want much more
emphasis on contraception, nor will it satisfy
traditionalists who believe abstinence is the answer.
But for many in the middle of this argument this will seem like a sensible compromise.
It is certainly a comprehensive programme and the target of cutting teenage pregnancies in
England by a half over the next 10 years will not be easily achieved.
Teenage pregancy is a complex social issue - whether the plans succeed overall will be as
much a test of the limits of government, as the merits of the individual measures
themselves
Source: (http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/special_report/1999/04/99/teen_pregnancy/newsid_368000/368557.stm)