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No hard data on this, but I assume that most teen pregnancies occur in demographics that are unlikely to care much for data visualizations. 77% of teen pregnanc
by jdormit 10y ago
No hard data on this, but I assume that most teen pregnancies occur in demographics that are unlikely to care much for data visualizations. 77% of teen pregnancies are unplanned [1], so these parents did not "decide" to have a child - they were just not careful.
[1] https://www.hhs.gov/ash/oah/adolescent-health-topics/reproductive-health/teen-pregnancy/trends.html https://www.hhs.gov/ash/oah/adolescent-health-topics/reprodu...
[Edited because I forgot to link the citation]
- anigbrowl 10y agoThe argument is that they were not careful because the educational focuses was on the negative consequences rather than on how best to assess/mitigate the risk. Teenagers in high risk demographics already know what sort of hassle having a baby is because of the example of peers or family members or neighbors. What they're much less familiar with is what they'd be giving up (ie all the life opportunities that they lack the experience to model as available options), and this naive discounting of the future distorts their risk calculus. Rather than working to increase their weighting of the known-negative outcome by saddling them with $700 Tamagotchis, it would probably be more effective to reduce the actual risk with greater focus on contraceptive methods etc.
- cperciva 10y agoMost teen pregnancies are not the result of teens deciding to become pregnant, but most are the result of teens not deciding to not become pregnant. (Similarly, very few people plan to fail, but lots of people fail to plan.)