Background to the Research

• Teenage motherhood has been closely associated with poor health, poor educational attainment, poor employment and prospects and socio-economic deprivation. Much evidence has come from large surveys and the nature of these inter-relationships remains unclear.
• A case-control study was designed to compare the educational and employment experiences of teenage mothers with those of an age-matched sample of peers from a similar social background and to test the feasibility of carrying out this type of research within primary care.
  

Research Approach

• Participants were identified from records in 36 General Practitioner practices in the Greater Belfast area. First time teenage mothers with one child aged 9-15 months at the time of interview were selected. 55 teenage mothers were matched with a control group of 55 nulliparous teenagers in respect of age and postcode and registered with the same practice.
  

Main Findings

• In both study and control groups 18 of the 55 (32.6%) participants lived in postcode areas which were categorised as having a level of 'moderate' social deprivation and 35 (63.5%) lived in areas of 'high' deprivation. The two remaining in each group lived in postcode areas which were not categorised as deprived.
• There was no statistically significant difference between the two groups in terms of the type of school attended, but controls were significantly more likely to have more GCSE passes. Only one mother (2%) had any A-level passes compared to 31% of the control group.
• None of the mothers was in full time education, compared with 19 (35%) of the controls. Only 11% of the mothers were in employment; in contrast, excluding those who were still involved in education or training, significantly more of the control group were employed at the time of the study (82% v 11%).
• Significantly more of the teenage mothers (78%) reported having finished their full time education at the age of sixteen or younger compared with the controls (22%).

Conclusions

• It is concluded that teenage mothers with one child report poorer educational attainment and employment status than their nulliparous peers from a similar social background with similar educational opportunities.
• Attention must be paid to these findings when planning policy to help teenage mothers and avoid perpetuation of a cycle of socio-economic deprivation.
• This pilot study indicates that it is feasible to use a case control design within a primary care setting to study the extent of inequality between teenage mothers and their nulliparous peers with regard to education and employment.