Teen Pregnancy More Prevalent In States With High Income Inequality: Study

While plenty of research confirms that living in poverty increases the chances of teen pregnancy, new information suggests that when low-income teenagers live in places with high income inequality the risk of pregnancy is even higher.

Keeping all other variables such as income and access to contraception equal, low-income teenage girls are more likely to become pregnant out-of-wedlock when they live in states with a higher than average unequal distribution of income, according to a study recently published by the National Economic Research Bureau. Mississippi, for example, has a four times higher teen pregnancy rate than Maryland, the study cited. Researchers determined that pregnancy among low-income teens is about 5 percent higher in states with the greatest wealth distribution gaps as compared to states with the least inequality. No such geographic variation was seen in women with high socioeconomic status (h/t Economix).

The trend holds true across countries as well. Even though teen pregnancy is on the decline, American girls are more likely to give birth as teenagers than their counterparts anywhere else in the industrialized world. According to a 2011 OECD report, the United States ranks first among developed countries when it comes to income inequality and fourth across the globe. Perhaps as a result, American teens are 10 times more likely to get pregnant than their counterparts in Switzerland, a country with a significantly narrower wealth gap.

The study’s authors, economists Melissa S. Kearney and Phillip B. Levine, suggest that income inequality affects the way low-income girls perceive their future economic opportunities, citing that these girls "choose nonmarital motherhood at a young age instead of investing in their own economic progress because they feel they have little chance of advancement."

The new findings come amid increased debate over abstinence-only programs -- which the study's authors refer to as "silver bullets" incapable of solving the teen pregnancy problem in the United States. Just last month, Wisconsin passed a measure mandating abstinence-only sex education in schools. And last year, Texas Governor Rick Perry defended abstinence-only programs even as his state has the third highest level of teen pregnancy in the country.

Comments

[johmich5]

11:11 AM on 04/27/2012

"choose nonmarital motherhood at a young age instead of investing in their own economic progress because they feel they have little chance of advancement."
-----------
Can anyone say welfare moms?
Many of these girls are just daughters who are entering into the family business...

[johmich5]

11:07 AM on 04/27/2012

“While plenty of research confirms that living in poverty increases the chances of teen pregnancy, new information suggests that when low-income teenagers live in places with high income inequality the risk of pregnancy is even higher.”
----------------
Minorities are poor. According to Margret Sanger Planned Parenthoods founder, abortion was designed to exterminate minorities and the poor. That is why PP has a disproportionate number of clinics in these poor minority locations. The highest income inequality exist in large cities, which are liberal. Need I say more?

Margret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood said:
"We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population," "The most merciful thing that a large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it." The purpose in promoting birth control was "to create a race of thoroughbreds."
http://www.dianedew.com/sanger.htm

[johmich5]

10:55 AM on 04/27/2012

“What Increases The Likelihood Of Teenage Pregnancy”
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That’s easy, one word, Liberals.

Liberals saturate the media with images of perversion, sexual immorality and promiscuity.
Liberals make Contraception available, which encourages sex and regularly fails
Liberals make abortion available, just in case your contraception fails or you forget it...
Liberals have packaged, promoted and sold, sex addiction to our youth.
Liberals encourage non-marital sex and extramarital sexual lifestyles.
Liberals are Hedonist, and perversion is what Hedonism does best.
Liberals indoctrinate our youth in public schools with sex education classes that promote promiscuity and alternate lifestyles choices completely void of morals, virtue and responsibility.

[psilver]

03:44 PM on 06/05/2012

Of course, only a simple minded man would say this....Sex is human nature you dim wit...so educate them to make informed choices. But, by the Bible thumping, fanatical conservative methods of Fire and Brimstone and FORBIDDING SEX...makes it even MORE FUN and risky. Haven't you learned anything from Prohibition... the more you forbid something, the sweeter it is to DO IT!! Education and discussion with young students and children is the key. You think Liberals are the source of these problems...haha...Again you are delusional. There is a child sexual abuse EPIDEMIC in the United States that no one wants to discuss. These are not children that are having sex, but adults that are forcing sex onto young children and teens.....Sex slave and human trafficking is rampant in this country, run by adults (probably God fearing Conservatives among them) and you are concerned about "perversion, sexual immorality and promiscuity" among teenagers. Usually children that have been sexually abused as small children become very promiscuous AS A SYMPTOM of their trauma.

It's much more complicated than you have a brain for, I am sorry to say. Actually most of the MEN in this country are the problem not the solution. If you MEN keep IT in your pants and exert some control over your HUMAN URGES, maybe we would NOT have such dysfunction in the U.S.

[Monika890]

07:23 AM on 04/24/2012

Use MedDose android mobile application,, pill reminder, you will never forget to take you birth control pill and won't be pregnant

[CAMBEL]

01:15 PM on 04/20/2012

Areas with high levels of ignorance and bigotry also have much higher rates of teen pregnancy.

Just like Romney wants...keep them stupid and poor and they won't be asking for raises.

[MSROADKILL612]

11:24 AM on 04/07/2012

They should use the pill. If u keep an asprin jammed firmly between u knees, u wont get pregnant.

[MSROADKILL612]

09:54 AM on 04/07/2012

"income inequality affects the way low-income girls perceive their future economic opportunities, citing that these girls "choose nonmarital motherhood at a young age instead of investing in their own economic progress because they feel they have little chance of advancement."

so obliquely, thay imply there is a living in being a single mum - fine - i am as fair & humane as the next guy - but what about the kids? Its very hard raising good kids w/ 2 contributing parents

maybe am old fashioned, but in the name of PC, we are providing a glut of broken kids who will have broken kids.

harsh tho they may be, tabus like incest & single motherhood, serve a practical purpose, ask any anthropologist.

[ttsgw]

03:45 PM on 04/05/2012

The high number teenage pregnancies shows that American teenager are both conservative and religious, they don't use contraceptives.

[guyview]

03:29 PM on 04/05/2012

I feel no sympathy for teenagers who have children they cannot possibly care for even as they cannot support themselves. The people who enable the teenagers to have children ought to be responsible for the child's support. If the government stopped subsidsidizing these people I bet the rate of procreation among them would drop. I have told my children the minute they become parents they are out of my house. I just will not condone irresponsible reproduction. I don't care how much these teens want someone to love them.

[marind]

07:37 PM on 04/05/2012

"The people who enable the teenagers to have children ought to be responsible for the child's support. "

Absolutely agree. The GOP should be paying to take care of all of these children their insane policies have help create.

[Mojo Falling]

03:10 PM on 04/05/2012

Guess What Increases The Likelihood Of Teenage Pregnancy? Lemme take a stab here -- more unprotected sex?

[ReadThomasSowell]

03:03 PM on 04/05/2012

Yet another story that's fools people by using the "household income" stat. OF COURSE single mother "HOUSEHOLDS" are going to have LESS income. It's the SINGLE mothers that are HELPING to CREATE the "household income" gap that these d0lts are reporting on.

This is just another story to somehow put blame on economics instead of values. It's done all the time and it's flat out disgusting.

[marind]

07:40 PM on 04/05/2012

"Values"? What "values"? Forbid sex but blow up innocent men,women and children in foreign countries?

Oh. I forgot. Right wing "values" stop at our genitals.

[CAMBEL]

01:22 PM on 04/20/2012

You're a liar. Individual income in Mississippi is one of the lowest in the country as well.

The "Values" states are also the ones loaded with poverty and single parents. Just another generation of religious hypocrites.

[ReadThomasSowell]

02:28 PM on 04/20/2012

No, they're the ones loaded w/ minorities. I know that statement is harsh but, it's the truth.

[Salty too]

03:01 PM on 04/05/2012

When I was in High School if a girl got pregnant she "went away" untill next year. It was a shamefull thing. Today they crown her Prom Queen.

[marind]

07:42 PM on 04/05/2012

Yeah. It was sooooooooo much better when girls who got pregnant were treated like lepers.

I grew up in a very wealthy community. Each year at my 4 year high school a cheerleader got pregnant. The girls all dropped out of school and slunk away to give birth, never to return.

Of course, the "unwed fathers" continued in school, played football or tennis, went to parties, graduated with the class, etc.

Disgusting.

[Salty too]

08:55 PM on 04/05/2012

Getting pregnant in High School is something a person should be ashamed of.

[CAMBEL]

02:45 PM on 04/20/2012

Thats because the wealthy kids and their ultra religious parents, just go to an abortion clinic outside of the state, and then come back into town, still acting hollier than thou sitting in the front of the church.

[kennethmw]

02:55 PM on 04/05/2012

Why didn't he just say "Teen Pregnancy more likely in RED states?"

[marind]

07:43 PM on 04/05/2012

Subtext.

[rsieam]

06:42 PM on 04/08/2012

democrat version of dog whistle.....

[Darris]

02:22 PM on 04/05/2012

This is terribly sad and disturbing. Girls feeling that they have such dim economic options. Actually if they interviewed boys as well I believe that they would find that most teenage boys feel the same way. In conversation with my 16 year-old son, I hear angst and concern about the future in all aspects of life. We are creating a future on this planet that looks unstable and unsustainable even to our children. If the child happens to be from a lower income family, the uncertainty rises exponentially. The key is CREATIVE education. Cutting back on school funding and building standards that are robotic in nature, strangles educators and creativity in everyone involved. We need to be less self-focused, less materialistic and more outer aware and action oriented. If you don't have a kid in school volunteer anyway. The kids and teachers need help and there is absolutely something you can do, just offer.

[marind]

07:45 PM on 04/05/2012

We can't afford to spend all that money on educating our children.

The money sorely is needed for subsidies to oil companies, bombs, drones, insuring private nuclear power plants, and otherwise insuring that a fraction of the population become uber rich while the rest of us become serfs and cannon fodder.

I mean, really. Where are your values?

[MSROADKILL612]

09:37 AM on 04/07/2012

I like the volunteering bit - should be more of it - most dads & mums have something to share - all jobs have dignity.

[Pod accountant]

11:59 AM on 04/05/2012

I thought f%4king increased the chances of pregnancy.

[marind]

07:47 PM on 04/05/2012

Depends on whether you have easy access to contraceptives.

[Pod accountant]

03:08 AM on 04/06/2012

I'm more thinking along the lines, don't tap it if you can't wrap it.