seven - Theorising teenage pregnancy as a problem

Summary

Introduction

Among scholars who question negative depictions of teenage pregnancy, there is a belief, sometimes only half articulated, that there may be other, less politically or socially palatable reasons that underlie anxiety about teenage pregnancy (Luker, 1996; Hoggart, 2003; Selman, 2003). From this perspective, anxiety about teenage pregnancy masks usually deep-seated social fears. Depending on the era and social context, these fears could revolve around young people's sexuality, welfare dependency, increased competition for scarce resources such as social housing, changes in family structure and a myriad other things (Luker, 1996). In short, teenage mothers are believed to be scapegoats for wider, sometimes unsettling, social changes, and are not the real problem. In this way, teenage motherhood is the site of a ‘moral panic’ and teenage pregnancy has been ‘socially constructed’ as a problem (Luker, 1996; Selman, 1998/2001; Hacking, 1999).

The idea that teenage pregnancy is a socially constructed problem is referred to quite frequently by researchers of youthful sexual and reproductive behaviour and also by young people's health advocates concerned about negative public attitudes on young people. Seeing teenage pregnancy as a socially constructed problem provides a useful starting point from which to explore (not always apparent) policy agendas and wider, negative discourses on youthful pregnancy. However, many constructionist-oriented analyses of teenage pregnancy offer only a partial analysis, and there are other limitations with this perspective. To understand how and why teenage pregnancy became a problem when it did, the analysis must be further developed. This chapter, the penultimate, most speculative and exploratory one in the book, attempts to do this by theorising teenage pregnancy as a problem. Constructionist and related ideas are considered, and the relationship between these and the policy design process is explored. The chapter is focused on two political eras: the Conservatives in power in the 1980s and 1990s, and New Labour in government from 1997 to the present.

Theorising teenage pregnancy as a problem

Social constructionism and moral panics: some considerations

The idea that teenage pregnancy has been constructed as a social problem is not a recent one (Hacking, 1999). Nearly 30 years ago, Murcott (1980) wrote a paper entitled ‘The social construction of teenage pregnancy: a problem in the ideologies of children and reproduction’.