Flanders: 30% of teenage mothers are of foreign origin

Flanders: 30% of teenage mothers are of foreign origin

According to a study of teenage mothers in Flanders conducted by the Center for Social Policy Herman Deleeck at Antwerp University, 80% of the teenage mothers in Flanders became a mother when they were of majority age. The average age for teenage mothers is 18.7. The younger teenage mothers are more likely to have dropped out of school and not to be working.

A quarter of all teenage mothers in Flanders don't have Belgian citizenship, and this total increases to 30% if you include Belgian girls of foreign origin. This group is, on average, not as highly educated as the others. It consists mostly of Turkish and Moroccan girls (about 15%) and girls from Eastern Europe, mostly from the former Yugoslavia (about 10%).

Teenage mothers of Turkish and Moroccan mothers are married to their child's father more often then the ethnic Flemish. They are also more often inactive, which means they stay home and are more or less invisible.

Source: HLN (Dutch)

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