Return to Table of Contents Go to Map
Births to Unmarried Teens
Births to Unmarried Teens are the percent of all births to unmarried
teens 15-19 years of age. Seventy-one percent (4,222 out of 5,943) of
the Arkansas teens that gave birth in 2001 were unmarried. Many of the
factors that are associated with births to unmarried women are also
associated with births to unmarried teens. By definition, unmarried
teen mothers are young and have not completed their formal educations.
They are also frequently poor and receive inadequate prenatal care.
Calculation of the Births to Unmarried Teens percent is identical to
the Births to Unmarried Women percent, except that it uses data for
women 15-19 years of age. In 2001, there were 4,222 births to
unmarried teens (aged 15-19), out of a total of 36,982 births.
Therefore, the percent of Births to Unmarried Teens = (4,222 / 36,982)
X 100 = 11.4 percent.
Births to unmarried teens were highest in eastern Arkansas in the
Mississippi Delta region. For the 1997-2001 period, Phillips County
had the highest percentage of births to unmarried teens, accounting for
28.5 percent of live births in that county. Alternatively, Stone
County had the lowest percentage of births to unmarried teens during
the period, with only 6.5 percent.
The patterns of percent of births to unmarried teens for the Public
Health Regions closely reflect those of births to unmarried women, as
might be expected, since births to unmarried teens account for roughly
one-third of births to unmarried women. During the five-year period,
the Southeast region had the highest average with 19.3 percent and the
Northwest region at the lowest with 9.5.
Once again, races are significantly different. The average percent of
births to White unmarried teens from 1997-2001 was 8.6, while the
percent of births to Black unmarried teens was 25.3.
The percentage of births to unmarried Arkansas teens has declined since
1998 from a high of 12.7 to the current 11.4 percent.
As with births to unmarried women, the reader should be cautioned that
the percent of births to unmarried teens is influenced by several
factors. These include the fertility of both unmarried and married
teens, as well as their relative distributions in the population.
While a fertility rate based on the number of unmarried teens in the
population is more desirable, such information is only available for
census years.
Return to Table of Contents Go to Map