Girls influenced by older pregnant sisters, study finds

TEENAGE pregnancy could be “contagious” and caught by girls influenced by their elder sisters who have children while young, new research suggests.

A team studied the records of thousands of women and their families over decades and found that those with elder sisters who had children in their teenage years were twice as likely to do the same as those without.

The research showed that although there is evidence that better education of women leads to lower teenage pregnancy rates, in families with teenage mothers the chances of a younger girl having a child in her teens doubled from one in five to two in five.

University of Bristol’s Professor Carol Propper, who co-authored the study, said: “Previous research has shown that family background and raising the education of girls decreases the chances of teenage pregnancy.

“However, these findings reveal the positive sibling effect (on conception rates) still dwarfs the negative effect of education. These findings provide strong evidence that the contagious effect of teen motherhood in siblings is larger than the general effect of being better educated.

“This suggests that more policies aimed directly at decreasing teenage pregnancy may be needed in order to reduce teen births.”

The study saw Prof Propper work with scientists from the University of Bergen and the Norwegian School of Economics.

They analysed census data from 42,606 Norwegian women who were born after the Second World War and their families as they got older.