The reason that teen pregnancy rates have plunged in the last few years is because boys are behaving more responsibly.
A new report by the Pew Research Center tells us the teen birth continues to hit record lows. You may not have heard much about this; despite its importance in the lives of thousands (or millions) of teens and their families, there’s no good single answer for why this is happening. Thus, there’s no political “win” and no ongoing news coverage.
I think boys should get the credit.
To be sure, there can’t be a single answer to a question like “why is the teen pregnancy rate dropping?”, so “boys” might be a bit simplistic. The causes of teen pregnancy are complex and include a variety of both macro- and micro-level factors, everything from poverty to personality. But I think boys might genuinely be the answer here.
A Few Statistics
As Pew illustrated, the teen pregnancy rate has decreased every year since the late 1950s, with the exception of a small increase during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Way back when, there were 96.3 live births per 1,000 females age 15-19. By 1985, the pregnancy rate had dropped slowly to a little more than 50 births per 1,000 teen girls before peaking at 61.8 in 1990. Since then, it’s fallen more steeply, hitting 40 live births in 2005 and falling to 29.4 in 2012, the last year for which data are available.
Teen boys who become fathers are more likely to end up on public assistance or in jail prior to age 35.
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For the record, that’s still north of 400,000 girls age 15-19 giving birth. On average—and there are plenty of exceptions—teen mothers are more likely to need and receive public assistance and are less likely to graduate from high school or obtain their GED, crippling their future earnings. Teen boys who become fathers have the same negative outcomes, and they’re more likely to end up in jail prior to age 35.
The common explanations for the decline in births are broader changes in women’s lives. Specifically, the median age of women’s first marriage has risen from 21 in 1960 to approximately 27 today and there’s been a consistent increase in the percentage of women who attend college. As a result, girls and young women have become more career-oriented and more careful about accidental pregnancy. But that doesn’t really explain the dramatic drops over the last decade; the age of first marriage hasn’t suddenly spiked, nor has college attendance.
Other “obvious” reasons don’t explain the change either. It’s not:
Less sex: According to the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey (YRBSS), which has surveyed 12,000-15,000 American teens in grades 9-12 every other year since 1991, the percentage of boys and girls who say they’ve had sex has been fairly constant since the mid-1990s. That’s also true for the number of boys and girls who say they’ve had a total of 4 or more sexual partners. Yes, the numbers bounce around by a few percentage points from one year to the next for both of these questions, but they’re bouncing, not dropping (or rising).
Condom use: According to YRBSS data, the percentage of teens who say they used a condom during their last sexual experience increased steadily through the 1990s. It peaked at 63.0% in 2003 and has stayed about the same since then. The raw numbers—based on all teens, not just those who have had sex—show a substantial gap in condom use; rates for girls are 10-15% higher than for boys.
Abstinence: Mandated by Congress in 1995, abstinence-only sex ed curricula have failed to change teen’s sexual behavior. Reviews of the curricula revealed a reliance on broad and inaccurate stereotypes of both boys and girls, an absence of discussion of gay youth, and a variety of factual errors. Shockingly, many states do not require sex ed programs to be factually accurate. Evaluations of the programs revealed that they rarely improved teens’ knowledge of sex or changed their attitudes about having sex. Although rare, they were more likely to increase teens’ sexual activity than decrease it.
There are some things that have changed.
It Takes Two. Most of us know it takes one male and one female, having penetrative vaginal intercourse (PVI), to create a baby. That’s not exactly news. Even though the federal government has been paying for pregnancy prevention programs since at least the 1960s, almost all of that funding focused on girls and women. That started to change in the last decade. Many pregnancy prevention programs now include boys and make them part of the solution. My favorites are Our Whole Lives, created by the Unitarian Universalist Association and the United Church of Christ, and Wise Guys, created by the Children’s Home Society of North Carolina.
The Safety Generation: Since birth, Millennials have been told, if not forced, to be safe. They’ve been wearing helmets since they started riding tricycles and have always known about designated drivers. Many were told that if they were too drunk to drive—or if their ride was—then their parents would come pick them up, no questions asked. For many of them, safety—in this case, avoiding pregnancy—is routine. And while the percentage who are using condoms hasn’t really changed, there’s reason to believe they’re using them more regularly than past generations, as well as using condoms while also using the pill or the implant. YRBS data indicate that 85-90% of boys say they used at least one type of protection during their last sexual experience, a rate that hasn’t really changed since 1999.
For Millenials, safety—in this case, avoiding pregnancy—is routine.
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It’s the Economy, Stupid. The most recent generations have grown up at a time when most of the “good jobs” out there require a college degree. Opportunities for unskilled and semi-skilled laborers to get a job and work their way up have dropped dramatically since the collapse of the US steel industry in the 1970s; the recent bankruptcies of automakers made many more of those jobs go away. Given all the economic challenges, many boys fear the economic yoke that a child would bring. It’s already hard enough.
Masculinity: Despite the claim that the group known as “men” are barely civilized cavemen whose behavior hasn’t changed in billions of years, it’s very clear that our expectations for boys and men have changed. Men are waiting later and later to get married and more of them than ever are attending college. Just as they have always done, boys and men continue to adapt to the culture around them.
I admit this isn’t the most definitive argument, but when all the usual suspects don’t seem to have an impact, it may well be that the explanation often overlooked—boys—is the explanation that matters. Or, to paraphrase Holmes, when you have ruled out all the likely answers, the unlikely must be considered. If providing girls with good sex education as well as broader educational opportunities can explain the long gradual decline in the teen pregnancy rate, then giving boys good sex education and reminding them about their opportunities should have the same effect.
Why then is it so hard to believe teen boys—or at least, a large segment of the male population—is being sexually responsible? Do we really still think that all guys are just roving inseminators whose little head does all the thinking for the big head? Today’s boys deserve more credit than that.
-image from Pew Research Center, derived from National Health Center data.
Photo: Eleazar/Flickr
Are you serious? If one compares responsible behaviors between girls and boys, the girls will always come out on top, since girls bear the brunt of pregnancy, while most boys head for the hills when his “girlfriend” becomes pregnant. Boys, in general, have never been the responsible gender when it comes to having sex. They take what they can get and block out the rest. Anyone who thinks that boys are having less sex, are living in another universe. Maybe the girls should be given credit by not accepting every “invitation” to hook up. Maybe the girls have learned to… Read more »
Nice leaps of logic there. It is well documented that when it comes to sex (particularly casual sex) the majority of females are having sex with a minority of males. its often refered to as 80-20 rule or some such. Look it up. Add to that there are safety nets to protect girls when unwanted pregnenies occur. For boys faced with teenage parenthood there is none. There are no positive options. There is no way out. Even when that pregnancy occurs as a result of statutory rape a boy can and are forced to pay child support to an adult… Read more »
“Are most people my age having sex? It may seem as though everyone your age is having sex. This can make you feel that you should, too. But the truth is that only about half of high school students have ever had intercourse and the average age when people start having sex is about age 17. Even once they start having sex, most teens don’t have sex frequently. ” …. from Planned Parenthood. and from WebMD …. “Guys can sometimes talk a big game, mostly to be cool and fit in. But, when it comes to sex, what guys say… Read more »
Could it possibly be environmental / biological like a rise in the use of endocrine disruptors?
That’s a good point I hadn’t even considered — maybe there’s been a decline in fertility. We can’t assume that teens are all equally fertile from one generation to the next. I keep hearing that male sperm counts have been dropping all over the world, and if that’s true than it stands to reason that it could be happening to teen males as well as older males.
Since we’re talking about a phenomenon involving millions of people making millions of decisions, there are probably multiple factors at work. I wouldn’t be surprised if internet porn has played a role in the last ten years — maybe more and more boys are choosing a laptop over a girlfriend. After all, you can’t get videos pregnant….
All sort of choices lead to a decline in teen pregnancy. Many of those choices are commendable, but not all of them.
I hear you Steve. And boys choosing porn & masturbation instead of IRL sex could well be a factor, although I don’t know how many genuinely prefer and actively choose online porn over an IRL partner. I think it’s quite complicated, and I didn’t dispute any of the factors that have been offered over the last decade. I’m just saying that boys are a piece of the puzzle and should be acknowledged in discussions of this topic.
And even if choosing internet porn over IPV was the reason, it would still be a choice that boys made.
I agree, it’s probably not very common as a direct, conscious, stated choice, like “no thanks, I’d prefer masturbating to porn instead of having sex with you.” It would be more indirect, more of an “opportunity cost” kind of thing. Staying at home by yourself instead of getting out there meeting people.
You know, I’m personally all for seperately acknowledging the genders on a wide host of topics. But this one really bothers me because this is the one are where a choice is required to be made by both a male and a female. It’s almost as if you are implying that if it wasn’t for boys’ good choices, girls would be making bad ones and still getting pregnant. For decades women have had to bare the brunt of blame for getting pregnant. They were the ones who are called names for visable proof of even having sex. As well as… Read more »
“The common explanations for the decline in births are broader changes in women’s lives. Specifically, the median age of women’s first marriage has risen from 21 in 1960 to approximately 27 today and there’s been a consistent increase in the percentage of women who attend college. As a result, girls and young women have become more career-oriented and more careful about accidental pregnancy ”
I think the reason he focused on boys was because he felt other articles and sources focused on girls to the absence of boys.
Hi Erin, hi John.
I hear you Erin and John is on target: as far as I can tell, boys have never gotten any credit for the decline in teen births. I don’t think they deserve all the credit, and I didn’t say that. But I think they may be a big part of the reason for the dramatic increase in the rate of decline over the last decade.
Whether my kids want to hear it or not, whether it makes them uncomfortable or not, I talk to them about sex. I talk to them about safe sex, that the decision to have sex has emotional and perhaps long-reaching consequences. I don’t sit down and lecture, I drop information bombs and answer their questions. I tell them to wait to have sex until they can purchase a box of condoms – alone or with me. Most of all, I tell them to call and talk to be before they have sex. If they can’t, then maybe it’s in their… Read more »
That’s awesome Jess.
I don’t know if you’ve seen this, but it’s a list of topics I think are important for boys to learn about.
https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/andrew-smiler-14-things-you-must-teach-your-son-about-sex/
Jess:
Good 4 u. I remember thinking when I was watching the various American Pie movies is that the father of the central character was presented as such a doofus for being willing to talk heart to heart to his son about sex.
Ironic, because that is the type of parent you want in your corner. The doofus father was actually a loving involved parent trying to keep his son from making mistakes and/or avoid hangups about sex.
Totally good point. Give boys some credit for making good choices. Society blames them for all their bad choices, so it’s only fair they get some credit for good ones.
This reminds me of another common misperception about teenagers. The vast majority of Americans would swear that the teen crime rate is going up and has been going up for 20-30 years. Most Americans assume that earlier generations of teenagers obeyed the law way more than today’s “out of control” teens do. In fact, it’s the opposite. The crime rate among teenagers has been going down for a couple generations.
Thanks Steve.
P.S. The Baby Boom period really skews the graph quite a bit, especially since “teen” includes 19-year olds. In the 1950’s, the most common age of marriage for women was 18, the average age of marriage was about 20, and the birth rate skyrocketed. I’d say there’s something fundamentally different between a 19-year old married suburban mother and a poor 15-year old single mother. Starting in the Baby Boom era, teen pregnancy had nowhere to go but down. The real significant drop is in the past 20 years, because it’s totally contrary to most people’s perception of teen pregnancy.
I agree with you about the Boomers skewing the data, but it’s not as though we saw a dramatic change in teen pregnancy in the 1980s; it’s been a long, slow gradual decline….until the last 10 years when the rate increased dramatically.
Parents don’t want to think about this too much, but there’s possibly another factor at work: changes in the kinds of sex teens are having. Sex isn’t just PIV intercourse. Kids may be having just as much sex in general but now having more kinds of sex that don’t lead to pregnancy. A lot of young people don’t even count oral or anal sex as “sex” anymore, which is pretty alarming. (Even some of the pro-virginity, pro-abstinence kids make exceptions for oral sex!) The “up” side, if there is an up side, is that these things are not likely to… Read more »
Good points wellokaythen. I looked for information on STI rates among teens, but wasn’t able to find a year-to-year breakdown for 15-19s. It’s probably on the CDC site somewhere.
The data we have suggest that there’s very little “offset” in PVI due to teens engaging in oral or anal sex, but those data only go back a few years.