So the teenage birth rate continues to climb (as does the share of DPB recipients that are aged 18-19.) Here's why according to Statistics NZ top demographer;
The proportion of girls aged 15 to 19 having babies rose for the sixth year in a row, from a low of 2.6 per cent in 2002 to 3.1 per cent in 2007 and 3.3 per cent last year, Statistics NZ said yesterday.
The agency's principal demographer, Mansoor Khawaja, said young women appeared to be refusing to follow their mothers' decisions to have few children later in life.
"I reckon they just didn't agree with their mothers, which is not uncommon," he said.
"If you look at the previous generations, the mothers of the baby-boomers had roughly four children on average. The baby-boomers [born between 1945 and 1965] have ended up with less than two children each.
"There might have been a generation gap between the mother and the daughter. It's very interesting that every generation reverses the pattern of their mothers. They go back to their grandmothers."
I think this is completely wrong.
Most of the 15-19 year-olds having babies live in the poorest areas. The teenage birthrate in the poorest decile is around ten times higher than in the richest. These girls very often follow in their mother's footsteps. It is part and parcel of the environment of disadvantage and disregard for education. The above comments take no account of socio-economic differences and attitudes. It assumes uniformity amongst fertile females.
Also the Maori teenage birth rate is much higher and accounts for nearly half of all these births. Yet the comments virtually ignore this aspect of teenage birth. Many of today's 15 to 19 year-old Maori females were born when Maori unemployment was very high and they consequently grew up on welfare. I would be very surprised if they were the first-borns of 'older' mothers who then counselled their daughters to similarly delay childbirth. Very.
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8 comments:
Lindsay - Once again the answer is in front of all of us - NZ and most of the Western World has spent the 2/3 maybe 4 generations destroying our FAMILIES and building industry on those damaged FAMILIES.
The way ahead is to enshrine **Equal Parenting** into World-Wide FAMILY Law and Social Policy so that we Re-Build our **Whole Natural Biological FAMILIES**
Go - http://petitionthem.com/default.asp?sect=detail&pet=4275
Once **Equal Parenting** is Enshrined into FAMILY Law and Social Policy we must get rid of all Law, Social Policy from Govt statutes thru to local body statutes.
Within a few generations we will see the terrible FAMILY related stats reverse – Yes about the time it’s taken to damage our society
Onward - Jim
As the custodial father of a teenage daughter I am appalled at the acceptance by a sick kiwi society of underage sex.
Society is rapidly a dangerous place for children. What the hell happened to our once proud Nation. Sick and sinister governmental agendas are to blame.
Kids deserve better from government. Gold medalists in child abuse. Proud to be a kiwi. Yeah right!
Top demographer? Where do they get these nimrods? The high birth rate, especially in poor demographics, is because dumb girls with no future can get an independent income of sorts from the state with no questions asked. Offer each of them $100K to get steralized and they would take it.
Last week when the irate mother of the slain tagger was shown on TV venting her spleen Did anyone notice the large number of young girls clutching young babies to their breasts as they gave support to their ignorant cousie?
Preteen girls giving birth is all about ignorance. Most of which is fueled by maori.
Dirk
How much of this has to do with the influence of Hollywood, the Angelina Jolie effect, I wonder?
Brian- offer a 42" tv, an Ipod, a slab of RTD's, a carton of fags and a grand.
That would be enough.
(they would probably go for less, but I want to make an offer they can't refuse ;-)
It is just basic economics. If you pay for something then you get more of it.
We seem to have strayed into an alternative version of "The Handmaid's Tale".
On the one hand our society is not totalitarian. On the other hand our productive class and our parasite class - lacking enthusiasm for having babies themselves - pay the underclass to do so. Our compulsory state education system maintains the underclass by studiously avoiding the teaching of vocabulary. As Oscar Wilde correctly noted, "language, which is the parent, not the child, of thought" - is the route out of dependence. Yet we maintain a system which ensures that that route is closed. Is what we are doing to these people any worse than what was done to Atwood's protagonists?
Dave Christian
I partially agree with Dave the DPB is a source of money people will follow the money.
The stigma attached to being a single mother no longer exists in many communities, in fact whole suburbs are reliant on welfare in South Auckland and the Far North.
I don't think people on the DPB see their benefit as coming from other people's earnings, they see the government as having an obligation to them. We don't even call it by it's proper name 'charity' instead we call it a benefit, we don't want to cause beneficiaries any difficulty.
The state has legitimised it, television has glorified it, Gilmore Girls one of many, and society has pandered to them, because pressure groups with liberal agendas who don't consider the outcomes of their idealistic policies.
Whats the answer, stop the DPB and support adoptions. The flaws with adoption are nothing compared to the flaws with the current system.
Gloria
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