Data gathered over the course of a 20 year longitudinal study of 533 New Zealand women
were used to: a) describe the extent and timing of pregnancies within the cohort up to age 20, and
b) examine the extent to which the risk of an early pregnancy was related to a range of social
background, family, individual, and peer relationship factors measured over the course of
childhood and adolescence. Results showed that by age 20, nearly a quarter of the sample had
been pregnant at least once, with the majority of first pregnancies occurring between the ages of
17 and 20 years. The profile of those at greatest risk of a teenage pregnancy (