Nothing much has changed in thinking of the US teens, who had sexual intercourse or asserted to be happy if their partner was pregnant, a survey claims. The survey indicates that acceptance of having babies without marriage has grown over the years.
From 1995 to 2002, "it was pretty much across-the-board improvements in those risk factors," says lead author Joyce Abma, a statistician at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics. "It is a source of concern to see that forward movement kind of stalling."
The US teen birth rate was one third lower in 2008 than that of peak rate in 1991. But still it is three times Canada’s rate and four times Germany's and Italy's rates.
Survey conducted with 1,381 females and 1,386 males ages 15 to 19 in 2006-200. It was found that more than 4 in never married US teens had sex at least once.
Meanwhile, teens have started to accept pregnancy, which is contradictory to 2002’s one out of four male teens who'd never had sex cited "don't want to get female pregnant" as the main reason. As per the survey, the figure has slipped to 12%. In both surveys, "against religion or morals" was the primary reason for not having sex.
In addition, the percentage of male teens who responded "agree" or "strongly agree" with the statement "It is OK for an unmarried female to have a child" increased from 50% in 2002 to 64% in 2006-2008.
"'I think we need to better understand if this is a change in attitude toward pregnancy or a change in attitude toward abortion," says Laura Lindberg, a senior research associate at the Guttmacher Institute.
"Teens don't live in a vacuum," she says. "What they see adults doing around them are going to reflect in their own behaviors and attitudes."
