Teenage Pregnancy and School Dropout: A Case of Australia

Teenage pregnancy
and school dropout
A CASE OF AUSTRALIA

Background of the issue
 It has been observed that 50% of all the incidents of pregnancy is unplanned in
Australia.
 The most striking fact is that victim of such situations are teenagers more than
adults (Hodgkinson et al., 2014). Even though young generation is aware of
contraceptive methods, in reality they hardly use it and it is needless to say no
contraceptive procedure is entirely effective.
 In spite of using contraceptive methods perfectly, according to WHO the world
come across with six million cases of unplanned pregnancies every year (Subissi
et al., 2018).

The concept of teenage
motherhood
 Although, motherhood is an important stage of every woman, teenage
motherhood is critical in terms of degrading social and health condition.
 A teenager girl goes through so many hormonal changes at once.
Meanwhile, such unexpected motherhood makes extreme physical and
mental transformation of which the girl was not prepare about
(Hodgkinson et al., 2014).
 Studies have conducted across Australia to understand the concept of
premature pregnancy and its outcome.
 Most of those studies highlighted teen mothers’ struggle in completing
basic high school study. As motherhood brings increased responsibility
towards the child and social image.

The concept of teenage
motherhood
 Young mothers’ need great courage to deal with social perception of
motherhood. The psychological change is difficult to face while dealing
with added responsibilities, managing household chores and balancing
work and taking care of the baby at the same time.
 The most traumatic part is that, in most of the cases, they end up being a
single mother supported by community members or cousins and friends.
Having family support is exceptional.
 Teenage girls due to increased responsibilities cannot complete their
studies and they continue to ruin their career by choosing to drop out
their curriculum and earn money for livelihood. Consequently, they waste
their potential and settle for low income jobs for earning livelihood.