David Farrar has blogged on Fewer teenage pregnancies, from an article in Stuff TV shows credited with fall in pregnancies which says:
Last year 4247 teenagers gave birth – down 387 from 2010, Statistics New Zealand figures show.
That’s interesting but it’s just a two year movement and doesn’t say anything about trends, so I looked up some numbers.
| Age-specific fertility rates | |
| Total population | |
| 1962–2010 |
| Under 15 | 15–19 | |
| 1962 | 0.2 | 53.7 |
| 1963 | 0.3 | 57 |
| 1964 | 0.3 | 56.9 |
| 1965 | 0.3 | 58.7 |
| 1966 | 0.4 | 64.6 |
| 1967 | 0.5 | 66.7 |
| 1968 | 0.4 | 66.1 |
| 1969 | 0.3 | 64.6 |
| 1970 | 0.4 | 64 |
| 1971 | 0.3 | 67.9 |
| 1972 | 0.3 | 69.1 |
| 1973 | 0.4 | 64 |
| 1974 | 0.4 | 60.3 |
| 1975 | 0.5 | 54.7 |
| 1976 | 0.5 | 49.8 |
| 1977 | 0.4 | 46.9 |
| 1978 | 0.4 | 43.3 |
| 1979 | 0.4 | 41.1 |
| 1980 | 0.3 | 38.2 |
| 1981 | 0.3 | 38 |
| 1982 | 0.3 | 34.3 |
| 1983 | 0.3 | 32.4 |
| 1984 | 0.3 | 30.4 |
| 1985 | 0.3 | 30.4 |
| 1986 | 0.2 | 30.2 |
| 1987 | 0.3 | 31.8 |
| 1988 | 0.2 | 31.8 |
| 1989 | 0.3 | 33.6 |
| 1990 | 0.3 | 35 |
| 1991 | 0.2 | 33.9 |
| 1992 | 0.2 | 32.9 |
| 1993 | 0.2 | 32.2 |
| 1994 | 0.3 | 31.4 |
| 1995 | 0.3 | 33.4 |
| 1996 | 0.2 | 33 |
| 1997 | 0.4 | 32.8 |
| 1998 |
0.2 | 29.2 |
| 1999 | 0.2 | 28.9 |
| 2000 | 0.2 | 28.2 |
| 2001 | 0.2 | 27.5 |
| 2002 | 0.2 | 25.5 |
| 2003 | 0.2 | 25.9 |
| 2004 | 0.2 | 27.1 |
| 2005 | 0.2 | 27.2 |
| 2006 | 0.2 | 28.1 |
| 2007 | 0.3 | 31.3 |
| 2008 | 0.3 | 32.8 |
| 2009 | 0.2 | 29.4 |
| 2010 | 0.2 | 28.8 |
It has gone down significantly since a surge in the seventies. There has been fluctuation rather than a trend this century, it is going down but it’s been lower in 2002 and 2003.
