6.4: Adolescent Sexual Activity

Sexual Development and Adolescent Pregnancy

By about age ten or eleven, most children experience increased sexual attraction to others that affects social life, both in school and out (McClintock & Herdt, 1996). By the end of high school, more than half of boys and girls report having experienced sexual intercourse at least once, though it is hard to be certain of the proportion because of the sensitivity and privacy of the information. (Center for Disease Control, 2004; Rosenbaum, 2006).

Adolescent Pregnancy

As can be seen in Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\), in 2018 females aged 15-19 years experienced a birth rate (live births) of 17.4 per 1,000 women. The birth rate for teenagers has declined by 58% since 2007 and 72% since 1991, the most recent peak (Hamilton, Joyce, Martin, & Osterman, 2019). It appears that adolescents seem to be less sexually active than in previous years, and those who are sexually active seem to be using birth control (CDC, 2016).

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Trends in U.S. live births and birth rates among females aged 15–19 show steady declines from 1991 to 2018, reaching historic lows by 2018. (Public Domain; via CDC).

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\) is a line graph that presents the number of live births and the birth rate per 1,000 females aged 15–19 in the United States from 1991 to 2018. Two lines are shown: one representing the number of births (left vertical axis, measured in hundreds of thousands) and the other representing the birth rate (right vertical axis, measured per 1,000 females aged 15–19).

Both measures show a clear long-term decline over the 28-year period. In 1991, there were approximately 530,000 births to females aged 15–19, and the birth rate was about 62 births per 1,000 females. Through the 1990s and early 2000s, both values gradually decreased. After a brief leveling period in the mid-2000s, the declines accelerated beginning around 2008.

By 2018, the number of births had fallen to approximately 180,000, and the birth rate had declined to about 17 births per 1,000 females aged 15–19. Both measures reached their lowest values shown on the graph.

The graph demonstrates a substantial reduction in adolescent childbearing in the United States between 1991 and 2018. The parallel decline in both the number of births and the birth rate indicates that fewer teenagers were giving birth and that teen births became less common relative to the population of adolescent females.

Risk Factors for Adolescent Pregnancy

Miller et al. (2001) found that parent/child closeness, parental supervision, and parents' values against teen intercourse (or unprotected intercourse) decreased the risk of adolescent pregnancy. In contrast, residing in disorganized/dangerous neighborhoods, living in a lower SES family, living with a single parent, having older sexually active siblings or pregnant/parenting teenage sisters, early puberty, and being a victim of sexual abuse place adolescents at an increased risk of adolescent pregnancy.

Consequences of Adolescent Pregnancy

After the child is born, life can be difficult for a teenage mother. Only 40% of teenagers who have children before age 18 graduate from high school. Without a high school degree her job prospects are limited, and economic independence is difficult. Teen mothers are more likely to live in poverty, and more than 75% of all unmarried teen mother receive public assistance within 5 years of the birth of their first child. Approximately, 64% of children born to an unmarried teenage high-school dropout live in poverty. Further, a child born to a teenage mother is 50% more likely to repeat a grade in school and is more likely to perform poorly on standardized tests and drop out before finishing high school (March of Dimes, 2012).

Research analyzing the age that men father their first child and how far they complete their education have been summarized by the Pew Research Center (2015) and reflect the research for females. Among dads ages 22 to 44, 70% of those with less than a high school diploma say they fathered their first child before the age of 25. In comparison, less than half (45%) of fathers with some college experience became dads by that age. Additionally, becoming a young father occurs much less for those with a bachelor's degree or higher as just 14% had their first child prior to age 25. Like men, women with more education are likely to be older when they become mothers.