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Publication Date

2009

Document Type

Honors Project

Department

Sociology

Abstract

The United States has the highest teenage pregnancy rate among Western industrialized nations. Poverty is positively correlated with teenage pregnancy. Between 1998 and 2008, over 10,000 youth between the ages of 10 and 18 participated in the Mobile Youth Study, a multi-cohort longitudinal study on risk behavior. It was found that within highly impoverished neighborhoods in Mobile County, Alabama, African American adolescent males were more desirous of impregnation than their female counterparts. The prevalence of impregnation desire and predictive factors were examined in 100 paper surveys and semi-structured interviews with 100 boys between the ages of 13-19 in three public housing neighborhoods. The findings from the survey show that 66% of adolescent males would be slightly happy if they impregnated someone during the next year. According to the regression model, reported age of first intercourse, female partner's pregnancy desire, and low level of literacy were statistically significant predictors for impregnation desire.

Comments

65 p. Honors Project-Smith College, Northampton, Mass., 2009. Includes bibliographical references (p. 57-65)

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