Prevalence of teenage pregnancy and the associated contextual correlates in Rwanda

Abstract

The rate of teenage pregnancy remains unacceptably high in most developing countries. In Rwanda, studies show a rapid increase over the past two decades despite the political achievements of women's empowerment, and efforts to curtail child sexual abuse. Unfortunately, the current knowledge of the household determinants of teenage pregnancies in Rwanda is limited, as recent studies have focused on providing numbers with little analysis of proximate causal factors or focused on the individual determinants. The study uses secondary data from the recent Rwanda Demographic and Health Survey (RDHS: 2014–2015) to analyse household factors associated with teenage pregnancies in Rwanda. In addition to descriptive analysis, we ran logistic regression models to determine the level of association between teenage pregnancy and household socioeconomic characteristics. Results indicate that marital status and age of household head, household size, number of bedrooms given the size of the household, and the educational level of the household-head are significantly associated with teenage pregnancy (p < 0.01). Teen girls from small households are more likely to get pregnant than those from large families, while financial, social and educational empowerment of parents, and harmonious household contexts contribute to lessening the cases of teenage pregnancy. It indicates that social and economic support to teen girls which include parental supervision, guidance, and financial care are essential aspects to consider in order to reduce teenage pregnancy rates. The study suggests that in addition to efforts directed to teens themselves, strategies for reducing teen pregnancies should focus on a range of household-level contexts that form two broad categories: empowering parents and maintaining parents' harmonious decisions on teen girls.

Towards stronger antenatal care: Understanding predictors of late presentation to antenatal services and implications for obstetric risk management in Rwanda

“…While both older and younger ages have been identified as predictors of late ANC initiation in other studies, we found that younger participants were more likely to delay ANC-1 in our cohort [ 17 , 41 , 42 ]. Various factors may be at play, including the stigma and social isolation associated with teenage pregnancy [ 43 ]. Our results suggest that targeting adolescents and those with lower educational attainment may be particularly high-yield in improving rates of early ANC attendance and should be a priority for CHW outreach efforts.…”

‘If She’s Pregnant, then that Means that Her Dreams Fade Away’: Exploring Experiences of Adolescent Pregnancy and Motherhood in Rwanda

“…The Rwandan evidence base on adolescents, contraceptive use and services is more extensive, reflecting secondary analyses of Demographic and Health Survey data (Hakizimana et al 2019;Uwizeye et al 2020). A regional comparison of young women's (15-24 years) contraceptive use shows how Rwanda lags significantly behind its neighbours, despite increases in contraceptive use over the last twenty years (Dennis et al 2017).…”

Association between Teenage Pregnancy and Family Factors: An Analysis of the Philippine National Demographic and Health Survey 2017

“…Furthermore, we found that the larger the family size, the greater the risk of teenage pregnancy, consistent with the findings from previous literature [ 27 , 28 ]. In Rwanda, large families (with more than 10 family members) were more than two times likely to have pregnant teenage adolescents compared with smaller households (OR = 2.13, 95% CI = 1.99–4.57) [ 29 ].…”