Ever wonder how births among teen girls have changed over the past 15 years? Or if parents ever disagree about whether their pregnancy was planned or not? Or even wonder how an unplanned pregnancy might affect the relationship stability of the parents? Or their happiness in their relationship? Don't look any further for answers, simply check out the 5 new sections of our DCR (Data, Charts, Research) Report and find out!

Section E - The Changing Portrait of Teen Childbearing Over Time
This section provides a portrait of teen births among girls age 15-19 in the United States, from 1991 to 2006. More specifically, the section explores the distribution of teens giving birth by age, race/ethnicity, nativity, marital status, and education, as well as the proportion of teen births that are low birth weight and are premature.
Highlights: Non-Hispanic white teens account for the largest share of teen births. However, since 1991, the proportion of teen births that are to non-Hispanic white and non-Hispanic black teens has decreased while the proportion of teen births to Hispanic teens has increased.  

Public opinion polling shows that two-thirds of adults (67%) believe most teen mothers come from homes below the federal poverty threshold. A full 70% of adults believe that most teen mothers come from single parent homes.

Not true.

According to new analysis of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health conducted by our wonderful friends at Child Trends and released today by The National Campaign, only 28% of those who report having given birth or fathered a child as a teen lived in families below the poverty level. Only 30% of those teen parents said they were living with a single parent (39% said they lived with both biological parents and 19% said they lived with one biological parent and one step-parent).

A couple days ago, an article in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) reviewed results from an evaluation of the Young People's Development Programme (YPDP) in England. The underlying evaluation had actually been done a year ago, but results are making headlines and popping up in blogs now due to the recent BMJ article. In short, BMJ reports that there were virtually no positive impacts of the YPDP program and, more surprisingly, some negative impacts--like higher rates of teen pregnancy.

Since then, I've read wide-ranging conclusions about what this all means for the U.S. and our efforts to prevent teen pregnancy--that sex ed doesn't work, that abstinence education works better, or that youth development actually increases risky behaviors (and, by the way, youth development is not synonymous with sex ed).

A recently released study on marriage and the impact of childbearing on marriage determined that after the birth of their first child, couples experience a sudden decrease in marital quality. While couples without children also experience declines in marital quality over time, the decline is much more gradual. The overall conclusion from the research is that becoming parents is a particularly challenging time for couples--probably not surprising findings for most parents or couples.

Now imagine how the data on relationship quality would look if it turned out that the pregnancy was unplanned--or if the couple wasn't married when they found out they were about to become parents. Couples in these situations are more likely to break up than married couples who plan their pregnancy. Clearly, becoming a parent can be very rewarding, but it isn't easy. Parents will be better suited for this adventure if they decide to plan when they are ready (or not ready) for the challenging task of raising a child together.

I knew it. I've been saying this for years. That collapse in society we've all been told about, where feral teenagers roam the streets at night looking like extras from a Mad Max movie having sex with anything that moves... it's upon us.

And who's to blame? Li'l Wayne, of course.  From Breitbart.com:

In an unusual piece of research, investigators at the University of Pittsburgh graded the sexual aggressiveness of lyrics, using songs by popular artists on the US Billboard chart.

The lyrics were graded from the least to the most sexually degrading.

They then asked 711 students aged 15 to 16 at three local high schools about their music preferences and their sexual behavior.

Overall, 31 percent of the teens had had intercourse.

But the rate was only 20.6 percent among those who had been least exposed to sexually degrading lyrics but 44.6 percent among those highly exposed to the most degrading lyrics.

It seems like every few years, there's some new research suggesting that sexually aggressive lyrics might be responsible for teens having sex.  I remain unconvinced.