The last 20 years have seen a huge reduction in the number of under 18-year-olds getting pregnant. Back in 2001, there were 43 per 1000, but by 2021, that number had shrunk to just 13 per 1000. That's dropped by two-thirds!
Most of these conceptions were amongst 16-17 year-olds, but the under-16 conception rate has seen an even more dramatic decline. It's dropped by three-quarters during the same period, from 8 per 1000 to just 2.
When it comes to sexual health, the pandemic seems to have had a temporary positive impact on STI rates, causing an identifiable drop in Chlamydia. However, the latest data shows that STI rates amongst young people are returning to pre-pandemic levels, with bacterial STIs rising particularly fast.1 However, conception rates weren't affected because they were already on a steady decline even before 2020.
There's also been a decrease in the number of young people engaging in underage sex, and it's largely driven by girls (see Chart 3 in this section). So as we can see, young people’s sexual behaviours are changing!
Chart data source:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/conceptionandfertilityrates/datasets/conceptionstatisticsenglandandwalesreferencetables
- 1 https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/sexually-transmitted-infections-stis-annual-data-tables