Teenage girls may know how to prevent pregnancy – that doesn’t mean they have the power to do it

Teenage pregnancy is often explained in simple terms.

Girls are said to lack knowledge about contraception, take sexual risks or make poor choices.

But is it that simple? For almost three decades, I have been researching how gender and sexuality come to matter in the lives of young people in South Africa.

My collaborators and I are currently working on The Teenage Pregnancy Project: Classroom, Cradles and Care and related projects on teenage fathers and caregivers.

These projects seek to examine how pregnancy and parenting is experienced and understood by teenage fathers, mothers and their caregivers.

The research is conducted mainly in KwaZulu-Natal province in South Africa with linked projects in Zimbabwe .

It involves interviews and group discussions including the use of visual methods to understand teenage pregnancy.

The research findings tell a more complicated story than the usual explanation.

It’s that poverty, unequal relationships and institutional barriers narrow girls’ choices about contraception, with dramatic consequences.

Our findings matter because they shift attention to the socio-cultural and structural conditions that shape what choices are actually possible.

Decisions about sex, contraception and pregnancy are made within gendered relationships and economic and institutional constraints that may limit what young women can do.

Read more: Pregnant teens in Kenya’s low-income areas avoid health care because of fear and stigma Understanding teenage pregnancy in this way changes the question from “Why did she make that choice?” to “What made some choices easier, harder or impossible?” Situating girls’ choices within gendered, economic and institutional environments underlines the complexity of the interventions needed.

These include involving families , schools and comprehensive sexuality education .

Relationships tied to money and survival Our Zimbabwe study involved 26 teenage mothers aged 16 to 19 from Shamva district in Mashonaland Central Province.