PG-rated : 40 reasons to think that the Japanese are superficial => OFFTOPIC about teenage pregnanci

Split from this thread

Maciamo said:

Err, no sorry, but where I come from this is extremely rare, like one person out of 10,000. I'd call them extreme cases...

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One out of 10,000? Maybe. But this is the sort of thing you can check.

http://www.mafamily.org/Statutory Rape Report.pdf
"In 1993, 1,572 births in California were to mothers 14 years old or younger."

http://www.dof.ca.gov/HTML/DEMOGRAP/NewHist_E-4.XLS
Population of California, Jan 1 1993: 31,150,000

http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/06000.html
California, 2000: 7.3% under 5, 27.3% under 18

I'll have to take a few liberties with the calculation - such as assuming
those '14 years or under' only go as far down as 12 and assuming the age
distribution is even between 5 years and 17 years old and the same in 2000
as it was in 1993

= 20% (5 to 17 inclusive)
~= 4.6% (12 to 14 inclusive)
~= 2.3% (12 to 14 inclusive and female)
= 716,450
= 23 girls from 12 to 14 pregnant out of every 10,000 in California in 1993.

PaulTB said:

= 23 girls from 12 to 14 pregnant out of every 10,000 in California in 1993.

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Assuming that California has one of the highest rate of teen pregnancy in the US, and that the US average is higher than EU average, I think I was quite close (although I hesitated in the number of "0" to write).

Maciamo said:

Assuming that California has one of the highest rate of teen pregnancy in the US

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No need to assume, that was mentioned in one of my links.

Although I suspect the US numbers have gone up since 1993 - the Bush Administration is promoting "Just don't have sex" campains which "Just don't work," is anti-contraception and has distinct anti-sex-education trends.

Maciamo said:

, and that the US average is higher than EU average,

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It is.

Maciamo said:

I was quite close

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Well you were probably within an order of magnitude.

However I don't know if I'd call that "extremely rare," it's certainly high enough for a new incident to be in the news every day and without comparative figures for a Japanese prefacture you can't say which is worse.*

One factor I missed in my calculations is that the California figures were for births but the comment by ragedaddy was about pregnancies. From my first link that would add a factor of two.

* Well you can guess - and my guess is that Japan probably is worse in terms of numbers, although off-hand it would appear that the US has greater ratio of 'abuse' to 'promiscuousness'.

PaulTB said:

No need to assume, that was mentioned in one of my links.

Although I suspect the US numbers have gone up since 1993 - the Bush Administration is promoting "Just don't have sex" campains which "Just don't work," is anti-contraception and has distinct anti-sex-education trends.

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Actually there has been a well-documented downward trend in teenage pregnancy/abortion/births for at least the last decade, according to this source since1991. Figures may not be available for the current administration -- although no news has come in of a national reversal that I'm aware of.

http://www.cwfa.org/articledisplay.asp?id=4959&department=CWA&categoryid=family

Elizabeth said:

Actually there has been a well-documented downward trend in teenage pregnancy/abortion/births for at least the last decade, according to this source since1991. Figures may not be available for the current administration -- although no news has come in of a national reversal that I'm aware of.

http://www.cwfa.org/articledisplay.asp?id=4959&department=CWA&categoryid=family

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Hmm, well I was only guessing on that bit. I don't think the source you quoted is particularly unbiased but I've no reason to suspect those figures are false.

As for the programmes to promote abstinence - I've seen studies to say they don't work and only wishful thinking to say they do.
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6957

Maciamo said:

19 is still teenage and I have never heard of anyone of that age getting pregnant among my European acquaintances. However in Japan I have (and many times).

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That's totally anecdotal evidence. If you want to say that there are more 18/19 year old women pregnant in Japan than in the US* then there are plenty of statistical sources to check - going by what you know from among the people you know just doesn't cut it.

* Which I would not be at all surprised by.