Reducing adolescent fertility and addressing the multiple factors underlying are essential for improving sexual and reproductive health and the social and economic well-being of adolescents. 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 socioeconomic 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 also provides indirect evidence on access to pertinent health services since young people, and in particular unmarried adolescent women, often experience difficulties in access to sexual and reproductive health services.

Annual number of births to females aged 10-14 or 15-19 years per 1 000 females in the respective age group

Age group: 10-14 years of age; 15-19 years of age

The adolescent birth rate is computed as a ratio. The numerator is the number of live births to women aged 15-19 years, and the denominator an estimate of exposure to childbearing by women aged 15-19 years. The computation is the same for the age group 10-14 years.

The numerator and the denominator are calculated differently for civil registration, survey and census data.

Computation formula:

Adolescent Birth Rate (15-19) = (number of births to women ages 15-19/mid-year population of women ages 15-19) * 1000

In the case of survey data, the numerator is the number of live births obtained from retrospective birth histories of the interviewed women who were 15-19 years of age at the time of the births during a reference period before the interview, and the denominator is person-years lived between the ages of 15 and 19 years by the interviewed women during the same reference period. The reported observation year corresponds to the middle of the reference period. For some surveys without data on retrospective birth histories, computation of the adolescent birth rate is based on the date of last birth or the number of births in the 12 months preceding the survey.

With census data, the adolescent birth rate is computed on the basis of 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 under-registration 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. Whenever data are available, adolescent fertility at ages 10-14 years are also computed.

For a thorough treatment of the different methods of computation, see Handbook on the Collection of Fertility and Mortality Data, United Nations Publication, Sales No. E.03.XVII.11,

https://unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic/standmeth/handbooks/Handbook_Fertility_Mortality.pdf)..In direct methods of estimation are analyzed in Manual X: Indirect Techniques for Demographic Estimation, United Nations Publication, Sales No. E.83.XIII.2.

Impact

For civil registration data, data on births or the adolescent birth rate are obtained from country-reported data from the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) or regional Statistics Divisions or statistical units (ESCWA, ESCAP, CARICOM, SPC). The population figures are obtained from the last revision of the United Nations Population Division World Population Prospects and only exceptionally from other sources. Survey data are obtained from national household surveys that are internationally coordinated—such as the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), the Reproductive Health Surveys (RHS), and the Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS)—and other nationally-sponsored surveys. Data from censuses are obtained from country-reported data from the UNSD or regional Statistics Divisions or statistical units (ESCWA, ESCAP, CARICOM, SPC) or directly from census reports.

The adolescent birth rates reported for global and regional aggregates are based on the average of estimated adolescent birth rates by one-year time interval published in United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2024), World Population Prospects 2024 (https://population.un.org/wpp/).

The age-specific fertility rates for global and regional aggregates from World Population Prospects (WPP) are based on population reconstruction at the country level and provide a best estimate based on all the available demographic information. WPP considers potentially as many types and sources of empirical estimates as possible (including retrospective birth histories, direct and indirect fertility estimates), and the final estimates are derived to ensure as much internal consistency as possible with all other demographic components and intercensal cohorts enumerated in successive censuses.

Births per 1000 women in the respective age group

Annual

cresswellj@who.int

Jenny Cresswell

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