Adolescent birth rate (per 1000 women aged 15-19 years)

The adolescent birth rate, technically known as the age-specific fertility rate provides a basic measure of reproductive health focusing on a vulnerable group of adolescent women. There is substantial agreement in the literature that women who become pregnant and give birth very early in their reproductive lives are subject to higher risks of complications or even death during pregnancy and birth and their children are also more vulnerable. Therefore, preventing births very early in a woman’s life is an important measure to improve maternal health and reduce infant mortality. Furthermore, women having children at an early age experience a curtailment of their opportunities for socio-economic improvement, particularly because young mothers are unlikely to keep on studying and, if they need to work, may find it especially difficult to combine family and work responsibilities. The adolescent birth rate provides also indirect evidence on access to reproductive health since the youth, and in particular unmarried adolescent women, often experience difficulties in access to reproductive health care.

The annual number of births to women aged 15-19 years per 1,000 women in that age group. It is also referred to as the age-specific fertility rate for women aged 15-19.

The adolescent birth rate is generally computed as a ratio. The numerator is the number of live births to women 15 to 19 years of age, and the denominator an estimate of exposure to childbearing by women 15 to 19 years of age. The numerator and the denominator are calculated differently for civil registration, survey and census data. (a) In the case of civil registration the numerator is the registered number of live-births born to women 15 to 19 years of age during a given year, and the denominator is the estimated or enumerated population of women aged 15 to 19. (b) In the case of survey data, the adolescent birth rate is generally computed based on retrospective birth histories. The numerator refers to births to women that were 15 to 19 years of age at the time of the birth during a reference period before the interview, and the denominator to person-years lived between the ages of 15 and 19 by the interviewed women during the same reference period. Whenever possible, the reference period corresponds to the five years preceding the survey. The reported observation year corresponds to the middle of the reference period. For some surveys, no retrospective birth histories are available and the estimate is based on the date of last birth or the number of births in the 12 months preceding the survey. (c) In the case of census data, the adolescent birth rate is generally computed based on the date of last birth or the number of births in the 12 months preceding the enumeration. The census provides both the numerator and the denominator for the rates. In some cases, the rates based on censuses are adjusted for underregistration based on indirect methods of estimation. For some countries with no other reliable data, the own-children method of indirect estimation provides estimates of the adolescent birth rate for a number of years before the census. (http://mdgs.un.org/unsd/mdg/Metadata.aspx, accessed 19 October 2009)

Impact

The United Nations Population Division compiles and updates data on adolescent fertility rate for MDG monitoring. Estimates based on civil registration are provided when the country reports at least 90 per cent coverage and when there is reasonable agreement between civil registration estimates and survey estimates. Survey estimates are only provided when there is no reliable civil registration. Given the restrictions of the UN MDG database, only one source is provided by year and country. In such cases precedence is given to the survey programme conducted most frequently at the country level, other survey programmes using retrospective birth histories, census and other surveys in that order. (http://mdgs.un.org/unsd/mdg/Metadata.aspx, accessed 19 October 2009)

Global and regional estimates are based on population-weighted averages using the number of women aged 15-19 years as the weight. They are presented only if available data cover at least 50% of total number of women aged 15-19 years in the regional or global groupings.

Births per 1000 women in the respective age group

Annual

The adolescent birth rate is commonly reported as the age-specific fertility rate for ages 15 to 19 in the context of calculation of total fertility estimates. A related measure is the proportion of adolescent fertility measured as the percentage of total fertility contributed by women aged 15-19. (http://mdgs.un.org/unsd/mdg/Metadata.aspx, accessed 19 October 2009)