Dislike for schooling as risk factor for teenage pregnancy: Development of a hypothesis using data from a study conducted on understanding factors associated with teenage pregnancy

Abstract

This paper is informed by the data extracted from a study conducted by the Multidisciplinary Research Centre (MRC) in 2014, titled, ‗Understanding Factors Associated with Teenage Pregnancy in Namibia‘ that focused on 602 boys and 2875 girls aged between 14 to 22 years of age. The aim of the paper was to test the hypothesis of dislike of school as a catalyst to teenage pregnancy. The analysis of the paper is based on 1,393 school learners that were all female. In testing the hypothesis both univariate and multivariate regression analysis were used. No clear associations were found between dislike of school and attitudes and behaviours (outcome measures) which may predict the risk of subsequent teenage pregnancy except for alcohol use and parental employment. Parental employment as proxy for socio-economic status emerged as a significant predictor of unhappiness at school while higher levels of alcohol use predicted higher odds of dislike of school. Interventions to promote youth satisfaction with schooling should be based on longitudinal research to inform effective policy and practice.. (Afr J Reprod Health 2021; 25[6]: 58-67).