This Seems Fishy
Posted by
tgirsch
From a new report:
Fewer high school students are having sex these days, and more are using condoms. The teen birth rate has hit a record low.
…snip…
The teen birth rate, the report said, was 21 per 1,000 young women ages 15-17 in 2005 — an all-time low. It was down from 39 births per 1,000 teens in 1991.
“This is very good news,” said Sondik. “Young teen mothers and their babies are at a greater risk of both immediate and long-term difficulties.”
The birth rate in the 15-19 age group was 40 per 1,000 in 2005, also down sharply from the previous decade.
Why does this seem fishy? Because they only mention the teen birth rate, without talking about the teen pregnancy rate. If the teen birth rate fell by a substantially larger margin than the teen pregnancy rate, then there’s only one logical explanation for the discrepancy: abortion. I don’t know what’s happened to the teen pregnancy rate as compared to the birth rate, but this is the only reason I can imagine why they wouldn’t mention the pregnancy rate.
On another note, there’s this:
In 2005, 47 percent of high school students — 6.7 million — reported ever having had sexual intercourse, down from 54 percent in 1991. The rate of those who reported having had sex has remained the same since 2003.
Thirty-four percent of the students reported having had sex during a three-month period in 2005. Of those, 63 percent — about 3 million — used condoms. That’s up from 46 percent in 1991.
This is further evidence that comprehensive sex education is an unequivocally good thing. Study after study shows that comprehensive sex ed works in two ways: it reduces the number of teens who engage in intercourse, and it increases contraceptive use in those who do.
Also note that the rate at which teens have sex is unchanged since 2003, which means that most of the decline came in the era of comprehensive sex ed rather than via “abstinence-only” education.
It seems to me that if you’re “pro-life” or anti-abortion, you should be all in favor of comprehensive sex ed.
UPDATE: According to these stats (PDF table 1), from 1991 to 2002, the rate of teen pregnancy dropped more than the teen birth rate (a 34.6% drop versus a 30.4% drop, respectively). At the same time, the abortion rate dropped by 42% (bottoming out by 1999/2000), and by 2002, a larger percentage (57.0%) of teen pregnancies ended in live birth than in 1991 (53.6%). So it seems my initial assumption about abortions playing a role was incorrect. At the same time, the arguments against “abstinence-only” education are only strengthened by these statistics.
More interesting stats from the document (although not necessarily relevant to this discussion):
- The five states with the highest teen pregnancy rates in 2000 were: Nevada (113), Arizona (104), Mississippi (103), New Mexico (103), Texas (101)
- The five states with the lowest rates: Maine (52), Minnesota (50), New Hampshire (47), Vermont (44), North Dakota (42)
- The Southwest and the Southeast seem to be the regions with the highest teen pregnancy rates.
- New England and the Upper Midwest seem to be the regions with the lowest teen pregnancy rates.
Without specific stats to back it up, it seems to me based on regions that a combination of widespread poverty, high population density, and (somewhat ironically) conservative religious beliefs all factor into higher pregnancy rates. Note that population density is a bit tricky: Nevada (worst teen pregnancy rate) has a low statewide population density (18.21/sq. mi.), but given that 76.6% of its population lives in Clark County (metro Las Vegas) and another 16.4% lives in metro Reno (93% total between the two counties), it’s got a highly localized, high-density population (241.8/sq. mi. in Clark County, and 64.5/sq. mi. in metro Reno).
Report: Teen birth rate hits record low…
Fewer high school students are having sex these days, and more are using condoms. The teen birth rat…
Trackback 7/13/2007
It likely only talks about the teen birth rate because there’s no publically available measure of the teen pregnancy rate.
Comment 7/13/2007
Pregnancy rates are not calculated; conception-miscarriage may often occur without the female being aware that this has happened, therefore, it is difficult to quantify how many “pregnancies” occur, whereas birth prevalence is more tangible and easy to quantify.
Comment 7/13/2007
I can understand the analysis on matters of ‘poverty’ and population density, but I think you went a bit wrong on the political breakdown. Nevada’s Clark County, for example, went for Kerry in the last election and has legal prostitution and gambling all over the place, while North Dakota when for Bush.
I’d wager lower educational scores, race, alcohol consumption, drug use, smoking use, and dozens of other things all tie closer in.
Comment 7/13/2007
Gatt:
Valid point. I didn’t mean to imply that all three of those things applied in all of those places. In areas like Clark County, it’s mainly population density and poverty, with religion not much of a factor. In areas like the deep south, it’s more poverty and religion and less population density. Race is useful only insofar as it tends to be a fairly reliable marker for poverty in America. Ditto for alcohol consumption, drug use, etc. I think part of your misinterpretation of my remarks was that you misread “conservative” to be a description of political belief, when I was actually talking about religious belief. While there’s often a great deal of overlap, the two are by no means identical. (But since you bring up the political breakdown, all of the five worst states were “red” states, while four of the five best were “blue.” I don’t pretend that this means that Republicans are more likely to have pregnant teenage children than Democrats; more likely, that teenage pregnancy rates tend to be higher where Republican social policies are prevalent.)
And frankly, I was unclear on the point of bringing up religion. It’s not that conservative religious views somehow cause higher teen pregnancy rates; rather, it’s that it doesn’t seem to help at all, and in fact the most religious/conservative areas seem to be the ones with the highest rates. Note, too, that even though areas like the Southwest may lean Democrat politically, large percentages of the population in those areas have quite conservative religious views on matters like sex and sexuality (c.f. Mexican-American Catholics, African-American Baptists, etc.). According to one study, teenage girls who are raised in conservative Protestant households are significantly more likely to get pregnant than any other group, including those who are raised with no religion at all. (Catholics and Liberal Protestant denominations were about even, both of them somewhat lower than no religion.) People tend to say that religion helps prevent teenage pregnancy, but the numbers don’t seem to back that up, and a conservative protestant upbringing may actually increase the risk.
Comment 7/13/2007
“According to one study, teenage girls who are raised in conservative Protestant households are significantly more likely to get pregnant than any other group, including those who are raised with no religion at all.”
What study was that?
Comment 7/14/2007
Fred:
PrincetonUniversity of Texas. See, in particular, figure 3.The same study also finds that girls who attend church (irrespective of faith) at least weekly are less likely than others to get pregnant, but that anything less than weekly attendance makes no difference. But even among those who attended church weekly or more, conservative protestant teens aged 16-18 were 87% more likely to get pregnant than the others (table 1).
Comment 7/14/2007
Tgirsh, are you telling me the Ivy League includes a Texas school? If so, they are a lock to win the football crown every year…
Comment 7/15/2007
Ted:
You’re right, of course! The URL is from Princeton, but the study was actually done at UT. Thanks for the catch.
(By the way, why doesn’t anyone ever want to let me have that “c” in my name?)
Comment 7/15/2007
sorry bout the c - I was using a touchpad to type & it is tedious to be accurate
Comment 7/15/2007
Can we just call you TG? I promise not to make any jokes about being transgendered.
Comment 7/15/2007
For all I care, you can call me “Tom.”
And make all the transgendered jokes you want. I’ve even been growing man-breasts to help along those lines (of course, that’s just because I can’t stop eating Mexican food, but that’s another rant).
Comment 7/15/2007
seriously was all that needed. I could’ve told you that, who do you think got all of those teens pregnant. If you guessed me then you are correct.
Comment 7/16/2007
“The same study also finds that girls who attend church (irrespective of faith) at least weekly are less likely than others to get pregnant, but that anything less than weekly attendance makes no difference.”
This is completely out of left field, but…
I wonder how many teens get pregnant on Sundays, when their parents are at church and they have the house to themselves. Could the relationship between weekly church attendance and non-pregnancy be partially related to a simply closing a window on a popular time for teen sex.
Comment 7/16/2007
There’d probably be more of a correlation with Friday nights and summer vacation, digglahhh.
Strange data, though. I mean, you’d kinda expect the Catholic sort to be similar to or worse than the Protestants, given the former’s pretty complete ban on legitimized use of contraception.
Comment 7/16/2007
Yeah, probably, Gatt.
It was just something sort of popped into my head. I figured I’d throw it out there.
Comment 7/16/2007