The only measure of teenage pregnancies readily available to my Department is the number of live births to women under the age of 20. This information for each of the past five years is set out in the following table. The figures for 1989 and 1990 refer to live births which occurred during those years, whereas the provisional figures for 1991, 1992 and 1993 refer to live births registered during those years. The data shows that the number of births to teenage mothers as a percentage of total births increased from 4.6 per cent in 1989 to 5.3 per cent in 1991. This figure has remained unchanged since 1991.
Number and Percentage of Births to Women Under the Age of 20, 1989 to 1993