Abstract
BACKGROUND: The inclusion of adolescent fertility in the Sustainable Development Goals demonstrates the widespread recognition of the possible health hazards as well as social and economic disadvantages encountered by young women and their infants. Moreover, adolescents are in a precarious situation due to their socioeconomic vulnerability coupled with the responsibility of motherhood at an early age. The present study has been conducted to examine factors associated with adolescent fertility in India and to understand the socioeconomic inequality in teenage pregnancy utilizing data from the National Family Health Survey-5 (NFHS-5). METHODS: Binary logistic regression and marginal effects are applied to determine the association between teenage childbearing and other independent variables. The socioeconomic inequality in teenage pregnancy is assessed by Errygers decomposition. RESULTS: Around one-fifth of the respondents aged 19 years reported being pregnant in their teenage (21%). The risk of teen pregnancy was negatively associated with increasing educational attainment, improving wealth index, and working status. The risk of teenage pregnancy was 46% lower among individuals with family planning mass media exposure (OR: 0.54***0.4-0.75). Marginal effects showed that with secondary and higher educational attainment, the probability of having teenage pregnancy reduced by three and eight percent points in comparison to women without education. Results from Erregyers decomposition indicated that variables such as rural place of residence (47%), attempt to delay pregnancy (25%), no exposure to mass media related to family planning (13%), incorrect knowledge of ovulatory cycle (4%) were positive contributors to inequality attributable to wealth quintile in teenage pregnancy. CONCLUSIONS: Promoting formal, institutional sources of knowledge regarding sexual and reproductive health, availability of contraception and their effective usage can enable adolescents to understand the negative repercussions of adolescent pregnancy. Moreover, work participation, higher schooling and access to family planning can also positively contribute to the reduction of teenage pregnancies.