INFLUENCE OF POVERTY AND EDUCATION ON TEENAGE PREGNANCY

Teenagers all over the world attract attention. The life and sexuality of the young people are very important for our generation. They are the future of this age. Their attitude and character today determine the future of our world. Their current problem today will equally determine the future problem of the world.

In our society, "Sex oozes from every pore of the culture and there's not a kid in the world who can avoid it" said Charles Krauthammer (Meier, 1994,). Teenagers are surrounded by some sort of sexual connotations all the time. Whether it is television, radio, school, or even the Internet, teenagers hear the effects of sex on our society. Thus, all over the world, teenagers are experimenting with sexual activities more and more today than ever before. This experimentation of sexual activities has really led to increase in teenage pregnancy.

Teenage pregnancy has long been a societal concern, but in the past decade, this issue has become one of the most frequently cited examples of the perceived societal decay all over the world. The United States has the highest teen pregnancy rate in the western world with approximately 1 million adolescents becoming pregnant every year (National Women's Health Information Center).

What actually is responsible for this rise in teenage pregnancy?   Macleod and Durrheim (2003) have noted points of tension in their study on teenage pregnancy. They attributed the causes of teenage pregnancy to what has been called ‘mainstream’ and ‘revisionist’ approaches in the American literature on the subject.  

According to the Mainstream writers, the factors contributing to teenage pregnancy include reproductive ignorance; risk-taking behaviours; precocious pubertal development; single-parenthood, female-headed households; family dysfunction; poverty; low self-esteem and moral development; poor health services; negative peer pressure coercive sexual relations; the breakdown of tradition and the cultural value placed on fertility (Macleod & Durrheim, 2003). 

A revisionist argument on the other hand, is founded within the conflict theory tradition. The conflict theory addresses the points of stresses and conflict in society and the ways in which they contribute to social change (Brinkerhoff et al., 2002). The primary assumptions here are competition over scarce resources, structural inequality in power and reward, and social change. 

Conflict theorists ask: who benefits from those social structures and how do those who benefit maintains their advantage (Brinkerhoff et al., 2002a)? This tradition holds that early reproduction represents a rational reaction to a number of personal and structural constraints experienced by teenagers in the African community (Macleod & Durrheim, 2003).

Experts in this area and other commentators have offered varying opinions on the root causes of teenage pregnancy. According to Gill Francis, of the National Children's Bureau, "There are four main reasons why girls in Britain become pregnant. We don’t give children enough information; we give them mixed messages about sex and relationships; social deprivation mean girls are more likely to become pregnant; and girls whose mothers were teenage mums are more likely to do the same"

Laurence Shaw, a UK fertility specialist, has suggested that, despite the social stigma attached to teenage pregnancy; it is a natural biological adaptation to begin reproducing during the peak fertile period of the late teens and early twenties. This is the period of time when the fecundity rate (a measure of fertility) is highest, nearing 30%.

According to Gracie Hsu of the Family Research Council, "contrary to the common perception that teenage sex and pregnancy typically stem from two teenagers getting caught up in the heat of the moment, new research reveals that many teenage girls are being sexually exploited and impregnated by adult men."  She also highlighted family breakdown, fatherless families, lack of parental supervision, cultural influences, and erosion of legal protections such as statutory rape laws.

Teen pregnancy continues to be one of the most difficult issues that teenagers, their families, and our communities face today.   What actually is responsible for the continued rise in the statistics for teenage pregnancy? Has education and poverty anything to do with teenage pregnancy? What really is the root cause of this ugly phenomenon? Has stigmatization any influence towards the rise of teenage pregnancy in our society?

Our study therefore is based on the influence of education and poverty on teenage pregnancy. We are going to limit our study to Inyi community in Oji River Local Government in Enugu State. Our interest is to know the extent poverty and education can influence teenage pregnancy.

DEFINITIONS OF TERMS

TEENAGE PREGANCY

PREGNANCY: According to World Dictionary, pregnancy is the state or condition of being pregnant or the period from conception to childbirth. For The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary, it is the condition of a woman or female mammal from conception until birth; the condition of being pregnant or the period during which a woman or female mammal is pregnant. Also called cyesis! 

But Science Dictionary sees pregnancy as the condition of carrying developing offspring within the body. The time period during which this condition of development of the baby exists is referred to as gestation.

Teenage: According to Marriam Webster Dictionary of Learners is used being relating to people in their teens. This is often relating to people who are between 13 and 19 years old. It is sometime used to refer to adolescent or young persons.

Teenage pregnancy is formally defined as a pregnancy in a young woman who has not reached her 20th birthday when the pregnancy ends, regardless of whether the woman is married or is legally an adult (age 14 to 21, depending on the country). In everyday speech, the speaker is usually referring to unmarried minors who become pregnant unintentionally.

The average age of menarche (first menstrual period) is 12 years old, though this figure varies by ethnicity, and ovulation occurs only irregularly before this. Whether the onset of fertility in young women leads to pregnancy depends on a number of factors, both societal and personal. But any pregnancy that takes place between this menstrual period of 12 and 19 is referred to as teenage pregnancy

Poverty is the lack of basic human needs, such as clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter, because of the inability to afford them. This is also referred to as absolute poverty or destitution. Relative poverty is the condition of having fewer resources or less income than others within a society or country, or compared to worldwide averages. About 1.7 billion people in the world live in absolute poverty (http/Wikipedia.org/wiki poverty).

Poverty is additionally seen as a state of mind and a lifestyle more than just a lack of materials. It is a state of deprivation and insecurity. Even those who can get above poverty are always close to falling back into its clutches. 

Education: The word education is derived from the Latin word: educare, meaning to “bring up",. This is related to the terms: educere  meaning to "bring out", "bring forth what is within", "bring out potential" and ducere, "to lead". In practice, education is seen as the act or process of imparting or acquiring general knowledge, developing the powers of reasoning and judgment, and generally of preparing oneself or others intellectually for mature life. For some people, it is the act or process of acquiring knowledge, especially systematically during childhood and adolescence.