Understanding the decline in under-18 conception rates throughout England's local authorities between 1998 and 2017

Abstract

We con­sider Eng­land's two-decade teenage con­cep­tion de­cline in the con­text of so­ci­etal changes: ris­ing ed­u­ca­tional as­pi­ra­tions; grow­ing sec­ond- and third-gen­er­a­tion teenage eth­nic mi­nor­ity pop­u­la­tions; in­creased de­pri­va­tion as­so­ci­ated with eco­nomic re­ces­sion and post-2008 Gov­ern­ment aus­ter­ity; and chang­ing hous­ing avail­abil­ity. Us­ing Eng­land's Lo­cal Au­thor­ity Dis­tricts (LAD) 1998–2017, we ex­plore the role of area char­ac­ter­is­tics in ex­plain­ing spa­tial dif­fer­ences in un­der-18 con­cep­tion rates and how chang­ing char­ac­ter­is­tics may ex­plain tem­po­ral changes. Ur­ban/​rural dis­tinc­tions in teenage con­cep­tions are largely min­imised af­ter con­sid­er­ing LAD char­ac­ter­is­tics. Area char­ac­ter­is­tics con­tinue to partly ex­plain teenage con­cep­tion rates but are bet­ter at ex­plain­ing area dif­fer­ences than vari­a­tion over time.

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ORCID for Katie L. Heap: orcid.org/0000-0002-9210-4477

ORCID for Ann Berrington: orcid.org/0000-0002-1683-6668

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