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Teen birth rate hits all-time low, led by 50% decline among Hispanics and blacks

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Re: Teen birth rate hits all-time low, led by 50% decline among Hispanics and blacks

#161

Post by andyjohnson0 »

pjdemers wrote: post #82
maxander wrote: post #9

The thing that will save the world from overpopulation- the internet. Both as a source of information, and perhaps as a way of abstracting social interactions that otherwise would have more opportunity to be acted out in sweatier ways.

A while back I saw some study said that said women who grow up with a TV in the house have on average, 1 less child than their mother. And this was holding even as we go into the 3rd generation of kids with TVs at home. The Internet, and especially mobile Internet, are like TV * 5. So maybe this is right.

There is a theory that, in Brazil, the popularity of telenovelas (ie soaps) have directly caused a decrease in the number of children that women choose to have [1]. Quote:

"The secret sauce of influence is the telenovela's subtle promotion of extravagant materialism by means of a smaller family as opposed to the relative poverty of large families. It's also had the effect of promoting urban lifestyles."

I don't know how directly relevant this is to teenage pregnancy, but there does seem to be evidence for media consumption affecting reproductive outcomes.

[1] http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/06/how...

Re: Teen birth rate hits all-time low, led by 50% decline among Hispanics and blacks

#162

Post by throwanem »

gambiting wrote: post #151
Chronic51 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most teens do not have a credit card or access to their parents' on Amazon.

I had a debit card that could be used online when I was 13, with my own account, and that was 15 years ago. I know debit cards are not as popular in the US, but I'm fairly certain 13 year olds can have them nowadays.

Debit cards are extremely popular in the US; every checking account by default comes with one, which can be used in any ATM or till that can process transactions on either a credit or a debit network. It is by far the most common means of paying for purchases, and has been so since the advent of the capability. (And, yes, we're getting chip-and-PIN now, too.)

I didn't get my first checking account (and bank card, which only worked in ATMs) until I attained legal majority and started my first adult job, but that was quite a few years ago now. I would be entirely unsurprised to learn that many, many teenagers today have bank accounts and debit cards of their own, even if it's only their allowance that gets deposited there.

Re: Teen birth rate hits all-time low, led by 50% decline among Hispanics and blacks

#163

Post by throwanem »

dpark wrote: post #88
Retric wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am 35 and in the US we had very detailed sex ed including how to use a condom, how wide the contraceptive window was ect starting around 12ish. IMO, this is really more an issue with many local schools being horrible than anything else.

I'm 33 and grew up in the Bible belt. Looking back, I'm shocked at how good my Sex Ed was. We were taught that abstinence was the only 100% effective choice, but also about condoms and birth control pills, as well as things like the sponge (which was not recommended, but still covered) and long term hormonal implants. The biggest misinformation we were given was stuff that was genuinely believed then (and still belie…

> I'm 33 and grew up in the Bible belt. Looking back, I'm shocked at how good my Sex Ed was.

So did I, and so am I. Ours consisted mainly in a full-color slideshow of various genitals horribly mutilated by unchecked venereal disease, with absolutely nothing held back. Granted, as teenagers, most of us found it as fascinating as we did appalling, and I can attest to the fact that it did little to discourage our burgeoning interest in sexual activity. But it wasn't what you would call useful.

Re: Teen birth rate hits all-time low, led by 50% decline among Hispanics and blacks

#164

Post by wernercd »

rmc wrote: post #152
eru wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps wider access to contraceptives still encourages more sex, but there were other forces even stronger in the other direction?

Or: Teens are having more sex, but contraceptives are stopping more pregnancies.

Or... Contraceptives are stopping some pregnancies...

And teens being too busy texting and not comfortable enough actually engaging with others are having less sex... Or religion... or being busy feeling #TheBern... or stopped having sex after feeling #TheBurn... Or are too fat... Or...

Re: Teen birth rate hits all-time low, led by 50% decline among Hispanics and blacks

#165

Post by user_0001 »

gozur88 wrote: post #21
Aelinsaar wrote: post #5

"The first is the most important and may be obvious: Today's teens enjoy better access to contraception and more convenient contraception than their predecessors, and more of them are taking advantage of innovations like long-acting injectable and implantable methods that can last years over a daily birth control pill. But the second cause is something that goes against the conventional wisdom. It's that teens -- des…

How much actual evidence is there that this has anything to do with contraception? I'm getting old now, and from what I can tell contraception was just as available when I was a teen as it is now.

I have an old friend who works for social service in the UK in a deprived area.

Without wanting to be too crude, he told me that partly the reduction in teen pregnancy is down to the prevalence of porn and how it ends in a facial rather than a vaginal ejaculation.

Re: Teen birth rate hits all-time low, led by 50% decline among Hispanics and blacks

#166

Post by Lawtonfogle »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #160
dangerlibrary wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mathematically, sure, that's fine. Empirically/theoretically, you've dug yourself into a hole that is difficult to get out of. You're going against Occam's razor so now you've got a lot of 'splainin' to do.

Occam's razor is a heuristic, not a law.

When found in the wild, it is more a fallacy than anything else.

Re: Teen birth rate hits all-time low, led by 50% decline among Hispanics and blacks

#167

Post by slv77 »

TorKlingberg wrote: post #143
slv77 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other studies later refuted it and attributed the drop in violent crime to phasing out of leaded gasoline.

The lead hypothesis is really interesting and certainly plausible, but I don't think it's been proven. I would like something more substantial than "the graphs look similar".

The paper based the freakenomics study was based on only looked at US data but crime was dropping in the 90's globally. A global drop in crime would be hard to explain based on US policy changes with regards to abortion while lead was removed globally at different times.

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-27067615

The abortion hypothesis was also correlation study (i.e. These graphs look similar) but didn't control for leaded gasoline. Also later studies failed to find more direct links such as higher rates of abortion in high crime areas that would explain the magnitude of the drop.

A later study by the author of the paper suggesting lead as the driver of violent crime did a follow up study that incorporated lead, abortion and other variables found that lead was the dominant contributor and abortion a secondary contributor.

http://www.nber.org/digest/may08/w13097.html

Re: Teen birth rate hits all-time low, led by 50% decline among Hispanics and blacks

#168

Post by lambdaphagy »

Aelinsaar wrote: post #5

"The first is the most important and may be obvious: Today's teens enjoy better access to contraception and more convenient contraception than their predecessors, and more of them are taking advantage of innovations like long-acting injectable and implantable methods that can last years over a daily birth control pill. But the second cause is something that goes against the conventional wisdom. It's that teens -- des…

You'll have better arguments if you understand why your opponents hold the views they do than if you just stare at them incredulously.

Why would anyone be skeptical of contraception? Perhaps because the normalization of contraception has come at the same time as a dramatic increase in single motherhood, from single digits in 1950 to about half of all children today [0]. If we are tempted to think that single motherhood is a problem of access to technology, it is sobering to think that we are worse at it than medieval peasants.

At the same time, total fertility has fallen to sub-replacement rates in every Western country [1]. This creates top-heavy societies that are dependent for young workers upon cultures that don't share our enlightened attitudes.

Is it certain that both of these trends can be attributed wholly to contraception? No. Do they suggest that Western cultures have adopted attitudes towards sex and reproduction that are proving incompatible with their own continued existence? Well...

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/12/18/the-u...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub-replacement_fertility

Re: Teen birth rate hits all-time low, led by 50% decline among Hispanics and blacks

#169

Post by coldpie »

MichaelGG wrote: post #100
dpark wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm 33 and grew up in the Bible belt. Looking back, I'm shocked at how good my Sex Ed was. We were taught that abstinence was the only 100% effective choice, but also about condoms and birth control pills, as well as things like the sponge (which was not recommended, but still covered) and long term hormonal implants. The biggest misinformation we were given was stuff that was genuinely believed then (and still belie…

I'm 34, and was in a religious, conservative, school. They did one sex ed class (a single one hour, one off thing). In it they mentioned how condoms fail a majority of the time, that you could get pregnant from oral sex (that semen could leak from the digestive tract to reproductive), and that mutual masturbation could also cause pregnancy (as in a guy could ejaculate in just the right way). It's like they went out o…

> was in a religious, conservative, school

> It's like they went out of their way to spread misinformation.

Imagine that.

Re: Teen birth rate hits all-time low, led by 50% decline among Hispanics and blacks

#170

Post by coldpie »

protomyth wrote: post #4
dpweb wrote: post #2

As a teenager in the 80s, (as a joke) tried to buy condoms. Guy wouldn't sell them to me said I was too young.

I take it that the gas station bathroom didn't have them? In ND, every gas station seemed to have had the same condom dispenser. I've always wondered what company was responsible for them and who stocked them.

Almost certainly the gas station itself maintained them. Just buy a dispenser, buy condoms, have an employee fill dispenser when you're cleaning the toilets anyway, make profit. You'll get some sales from people too embarrassed (or in a hurry) to bring condoms up to a cashier.
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