Teen Pregnancy Facts and Individual Antecedents of Teen Pregnancy - Part 2
Teen Pregnancy - Individual Antecedents - Part 2
The relationship that teens have with their school also influences their sexual behaviour. Chances that they will engage in unprotected sex and become pregnant are reduced when they are attached to and succeed in school. Sex is initiated later and contraception used more effectively when teens have aspirations of higher education, get good grades, believe academic success to be important, and do not drop out of school. Teens are motivated to avoid risky sexual behaviour when positive feelings are associated with school. (Kirby, 2002).
Of the respondents to McCullough and Scherman’s (1993) questionnaire, 43% of the respondents reported to have experienced sexual abuse as a child or adolescent. This finding is consistent with other studies on teen pregnancy. They hypothesize that this correlation between teen pregnancy and sexual abuse may be because the abused female may struggle to complete certain development in adolescence. The abused female may seek closeness to someone through repeated sexual intimacy. According to Roosa, Tein, Reinholtz, & Angelini (1997), sexual abuse alone is not related to teen pregnancy. They assert that sexual abuse and teen pregnancy “could be separate outcomes of common risk factors”. In their study, sexual abuse contributed little to teen pregnancy; there was no significant relationship. They did however find that sexually abused teens that belonged to a certain sub-group might be at greater risk for pregnancy, such as Mexican American teens who were abused by their partners.
Hispanic and African Americans tend to have sex earlier than Caucasians do and are therefore more likely to become pregnant. These are not mainly ethnic and racial differences but differences in community levels of poverty, education, and opportunity. When factors related to ethnicity and race are held constant, the impact of ethnicity and race are almost completely eliminated. The remaining differences may be explained by differing cultural values, with Hispanic families being more accepting of early pregnancies than non-Hispanic families for example. (Kirby, 2002). Roosa et al. recommend that more research be done on the cultural influences on teen pregnancy.
