NEWS MEDIA CENTER

Teen Trends

Increasing numbers of young people are practicing abstinence. The percentage of teens that have had premarital sex declined during the 1990s. In 1991, 54% of teens said they had had sex, compared to 47% in 2003. (Source: Centers for Disease Control, National Youth Risk Behavior Survey 1991-2003.)

In 2004, an independent study found that abstinence programs such as True Love Waits dramatically reduce the rate of out-of-wedlock births. The study, which tracked the effects of virginity pledges six years later, found that young women who take a virginity pledge are at least 40 percent less likely to have a child out of wedlock and 12 times more likely to be virgins when they marry, compared to young women who do not make such a pledge. (Source: The Heritage Foundation.)

These findings were consistent with a 2001 study that reported teenagers who pledge to remain sexually abstinent until marriage are 34 percent less likely to have sex than those who do not pledge. Researchers conducting the study noted the delay effect is "substantial and almost impossible to erase." The pledge works, the study suggests, because it creates an "identity movement" or "moral community" that provides peer support for the teen. (Source: The American Journal of Sociology.)

A 2006 survey of Baptist newlyweds suggests that, though true love does not always wait, it waits more often if it starts with a formal pledge of purity. Byron Weathersbee, interim chaplain at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, analyzed such sexual-purity pledges and sex education in a Christian context as the focus of his doctoral dissertation. He surveyed young married couples in Texas Baptist churches to examine how -- and how much -- churches made an impact on their sexual behavior.

Of the young Christians surveyed, six out of 10 who made sexual purity pledges abstained from sexual intercourse until marriage. But only three of 10 who didn't take a formal pledge remained chaste. The study was consistent with previous findings in its suggestion that Baptist couples were more likely to save sex for their wedding night if they took a formal abstinence pledge.

Weathersbee's research also revealed "only 27 percent of the young people entered the marriage bed chaste," having refrained not only from intercourse but also from other sexual practices. The strength of the True Love Waits emphasis lies in the way it involves parents, a supportive network of peers, the church as a whole and the community at-large in emphasizing the importance of a pure lifestyle, Weathersbee said. (Sources: Associated Baptist Press, Feb. 7, 2006 and AFA Journal, April 2006.)

A decade of declining teenage birth rates has led to a notable reduction in the number of U.S. children living in poverty. Building on research by two congressional committees, the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy released a state-by-state report identifying how many more children would be living in poverty or growing up in a household with one parent in 2002 if the teenage pregnancy rate had remained at 1991 levels.

Nationally, the teenage birth rate fell 30 percent from 1991 to 2002, the most recent year for which such statistics are available. If the rate had not dropped during the decade, 1.2 million more children would have been born to teenage mothers in the United States. Of those, 460,000 would have been living in poverty and 700,000 would have grown up in a single-parent household, according to the analysis. The federal poverty level in 2002 was a $14,494 gross annual income for a parent and two children. (Source: Washington Post, April 14, 2005.)

Snapshots:

• In the United States, 35% of all births are out of wedlock. (Source: Births: Final Data for 2003, National Vital Statistics Reports 54, September 8, 2005, National Center for Health Statistics)
• The gross annual cost to society of unwed childbearing and its negative consequences is $29 billion. (Source: Kids Having Kids: A Robin Hood Foundation Special Report on the Costs of Adolescent Childbearing, The Robin Hood Foundation.)
• Nearly 80% of unmarried teen mothers end up on welfare. (Source: National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, 2004.)
• A 2005 study of youth in grades 7-11 found that engaging in premarital sex often leads to depression. (Source: "Which Comes First in Adolescence - Sex and Drugs or Depression?" American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 2005.)
• A majority of both teen girls and boys who are sexually active wish they had waited until they were older to have sex. (Source: National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, 2004.)
• Almost all teens (94%) believe that teens should be given a strong message from society to abstain from sex until at least after high school. (Source: National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, "With One Voice 2004: America's Adults and Teens Sound off about Teen Pregnancy," December 2004.)