Adolescent fertility around the world.

Leticia J. Marteleto, University of Texas at Austin

Adolescence is a period of key transitions in individuals’ lives. During the teenage years, there is rapid physical, social, psychological and economic development as well as learning and skills building, risk and vulnerability. Social, economic, biological and demographic transitions set the stage for adult life as they shape adolescents’ entire future. The goal of this paper is to provide an extensive picture of adolescent fertility for every country in the world in the period from 1985 to 2005. We also examine three determinants of adolescent fertility: marriage, timing of first sexual intercourse and contraceptive use. We provide current levels and trends of these three factors, highlighting their interconnections with adolescent fertility. In the last section we develop a conceptual framework for classifying adolescent fertility where we locate its current levels relating each country in the world to its levels of total fertility rate, adolescent marriage, sexual debut and contraceptive use.