16 and Pregnant is an American reality television series that aired from June 11, 2009, to July 1, 2014, on MTV. It followed the stories of pregnant teenage girls in high school dealing with the hardships of teenage pregnancy. Each episode featured a different teenage girl, with the episode typically beginning when she is – 8 months into her pregnancy. The episode typically ends when the baby is a few months old. The series is produced in a documentary format, with an animation on notebook paper showing highlights during each episode preceding the commercial breaks. 16 and Pregnant has spawned four spin-off series: Teen Mom, Teen Mom 2, Teen Mom 3 and . Each series follows the lives of four girls from their respective season of 16 and Pregnant as they navigate their first years of motherhood. The fifth and final season premiered on April 14, 2014.
Episodes
Reception
Based on a preview of the show's first three episodes, The New York Times called the series a "documentary-style series about real-life Junos who are not scoring in the 99th percentile on the verbal portion of their SATs... despite its showcasing of the grim, hard work of single mothering." In 2011, the Social Security Administration reported that the names of one of the featured mothers and her son, "Maci" and "Bentley", were the names that saw the greatest increase in frequency over the past year. In 2016, a The New York Times study of the 50 TV shows with the most Facebook Likes found that "similar to Teen Mom, 16 and Pregnant is more popular in rural parts of the country".
Impact
In 2014, the National Bureau of Economic Research conducted and published a study suggesting a correlation between the premiere of the show in 2009 and a 5.7% decrease in teen births in the 18 months following the premiere. At the time, it was unknown whether this was due to the premiere of 16 and Pregnant or the recent economic decline. Research conducted in 2016 suggests that 16 and Pregnant was unlikely to have had any effect on teenage birth rates and prior research to be "problematic." The latest study reveals, through a series of placebo and other tests, that the assumption of common trends in birth rates between low and high MTV-watching areas is not met.
