The last 20 years have seen a huge reduction in the number of under 18-year-olds getting pregnant. Back in 2001, there were 43 per 1000, but by 2021, that number had shrunk to just 13 per 1000. That's dropped by two-thirds!

Most of these conceptions were amongst 16-17 year-olds, but the under-16 conception rate has seen an even more dramatic decline. It's dropped by three-quarters during the same period, from 8 per 1000 to just 2.

When it comes to sexual health, the pandemic seems to have had a temporary positive impact on STI rates, causing an identifiable drop in Chlamydia. However, post pandemic data showed that STI rates amongst young people were returning to pre-pandemic levels, with bacterial STIs rising particularly fast. And more recently while 2024 saw a significant drop in Chlamydia infections in young people there was also a parallel drop in the number of tests performed. Whether this is because there are genuinely less infections or just less people getting tested we can't yet tell.¹

There's also been a decrease in the number of young people engaging in underage sex, and it's largely driven by girls (see Chart 3 in this section). So as we can see, young people’s sexual behaviours are changing!