Rates of births to teenage mothers are strongly predicted by religious beliefs say a duo writing in Reproductive Health who believe they have found a strong association between teenage birth rates and state-level measures of religiosity in the U.S.
So religious teenagers are having more unprotected sex than 'atheist' states? According to Joseph Strayhorn, an adjunct faculty member with Drexel University and the University of Pittsburgh, "Our findings by themselves do not, of course, permit causal inferences. But, if we may speculate on the most probable explanation, we conjecture that religious communities in the US are more successful in discouraging the use of contraception among their teenagers than they are in discouraging sexual intercourse itself".
Luckily, Strayhorn and Jillian Strayhorn used more than speculation, though their bias against religion may be cause for concern. They used data from the Pew Forum's US Religious Landscapes Survey and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to evaluate the state level effects of belief on teen birth rates.
The religiosity of a state was determined by averaging the percents of respondents who agreed with the eight most conservative opinions possible in the Religious Landscapes Survey, such as 'There is only one way to interpret the teachings of my religion' or 'Scripture should be taken literally, word for word'.
Strayhorn said, "The magnitude of the correlation between religiosity and teen birth rate astonished us. Teen birth is more highly correlated with some of the religiosity items on the Religious Landscapes Survey than some of those items are correlated with each other".
Strayhorn says they attempted to account for the fewer abortions among religious people and the higher income levels they have but they believe their data is valid even in that context.
Source: BioMed Central