Teen birth rates highest in most religious states

Link may be due to communities frowning on contraception, researchers say

By Jeanna Bryner
updated 1 hour, 11 minutes ago

U.S. states whose residents have more conservative religious beliefs on average tend to have higher rates of teenagers giving birth, a new study suggests.

The relationship could be due to the fact that communities with such religious beliefs (a literal interpretation of the Bible, for instance) may frown upon contraception, researchers say. If that same culture isn't successfully discouraging teen sex, the pregnancy and birth rates rise.

Mississippi topped the list for conservative religious beliefs and teen birth rates, according to the study results, which will be detailed in a forthcoming issue of the journal Reproductive Health. (See chart below.)

However, the results don't say anything about cause and effect, though study researcher Joseph Strayhorn of Drexel University College of Medicine and University of Pittsburgh offers a speculation of the most probable explanation: "We conjecture that religious communities in the U.S. are more successful in discouraging the use of contraception among their teenagers than they are in discouraging sexual intercourse itself."

The study comes with other significant caveats, too:

The same link might not be found for other types of religious beliefs that are perhaps more liberal, researchers say. And while the study reveals information about states as a whole, it doesn't shed light on whether an individual teen who is more religious will also be more likely to have a child.

"You can't talk about individuals, because you don't know what's producing the [teen birth] rate," said Amy Adamczyk, a sociologist at the City University of New York, who was not involved in the current study. "Are there just a couple of really precocious religious teenagers who are running around and getting pregnant and having all of these babies, but that's not the norm?"

Strayhorn agrees and says the study aimed to look at communities (or states) as a whole.

"It is possible that an anti-contraception attitude could be caused by religious cultures and that could exert its effect mainly on the non-religious individuals in the culture," Strayhorn told LiveScience. But, he added, "We don't know."

Bible states

Strayhorn compiled data from various data sets. The religiosity information came from a sample of nearly 36,000 participants who were part of the U.S. Religious Landscapes Survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life conducted in 2007, while the teen birth and abortion statistics came from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

For religiosity, the researchers averaged the percentage of respondents who agreed with conservative responses to eight statements, including: ''There is only one way to interpret the teachings of my religion," and ''Scripture should be taken literally, word for word."

They found a strong correlation between statewide conservative religiousness and statewide teen birth rate even when they accounted for income and abortion rates.

More abortions among teens in less religious states
For instance, the results showed more abortions among teenagers in the less religious states, which would skew the findings since fewer teens in these states would have births. But even after accounting for the abortions, the study team still found a state's level of religiosity could predict their teen birth rate. The higher the religiosity, the higher was the teen birth rate on average.

John Santelli of the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University calls the study "well-done," adding that the results are not surprising.

"The index of religiosity is tapping into more fundamentalist religious belief," Santelli said. "I'm sure there are parts of New England that have very low teen birth rates, which have pretty high religious participation, but they're probably less conservative, less fundamentalist type of congregations."

Other factors that may have been important to consider include ethnic backgrounds of state residents, according to Adamczyk, the City University of New York sociologist.

"We know that African American women on average tend to underreport their abortions, which means they could also underreport the likelihood that they got pregnant," Adamczyk said. "If you're dealing with states with a high number of African American women, you might run into that problem."

Adamczyk's own, separate research has shown a nearly opposite correlation, at the individual level. "What we find is that more religious women are less likely to engage in riskier sex behaviors, and as a result they are less likely to have a premarital pregnancy," Adamczyk said during a telephone interview. But for those religious teens who do choose to have premarital sex, they might be more likely to ditch their religious views and have an abortion, she has found.

Cause and effect?
Adamczyk says the idea that anti-contraception principles could be behind the link is controversial, as studies on the topic have varied results. "The idea is that in the heat of the moment, a young woman who has said, 'I'm going to be a virgin on my wedding night,' is with her boyfriend and she says 'Let's just do it.' And since they didn't plan it, nobody has a condom. And so it increases their chances of a pregnancy," Adamczyk said.

Earlier marriage among religious individuals could also partly explain the finding.

"In the south, there is a higher rate of marriage of teenagers. And one possible explanation is just that in the southern states, which are also more religious, people just get married earlier and have planned pregnancies and those have perfectly good outcomes," Strayhorn said. He added that he doesn't think the earlier marriage idea explains the religion-birth link.

Teen birth rates and religiousness in the United States
This table shows data that reflect birth rates and religiousness throughout the United States. "Birth rate" is the state’s national ranking by rate of teen births according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and "religiousness" is the state’s national ranking based on responses to a survey of religious beliefs taken by The Pew Forum on Religion and Public
Life. Asterisks indicate that no data are available.

State Birth rate - Religiousness

Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

Mississippi 1 1
New Mexico 2 22
Texas 3 12
Arkansas 4 7
Arizona 5 33
Oklahoma 6 10
Nevada 7 34
Tennessee 8 4
Kentucky 9 9
Georgia 10 11
Louisiana 11 5
Alabama 12 2
South Carolina 13 3
North Carolina 14 8
District of Columbia 15 100000*
Wyoming 16 100000*
Missouri 17 16
Florida 18 23
West Virginia 19 13
Alaska 20 46
Colorado 21 41
Indiana 22 17
Kansas 23 15
Delaware 24 27
Hawaii 25 18
South Dakota 26 21
Ohio 27 26
California 28 37
Montana 29 20
Illinois 30 31
Idaho 31 14
Oregon 32 38
Virginia 33 19
Utah 34 6
Michigan 35 29
Maryland 36 25
Nebraska 37 24
Washington 38 35
Iowa 39 32
Pennsylvania 40 28
Wisconsin 41 40
Minnesota 42 36
Rhode Island 43 43
North Dakota 44 30
Maine 45 47
New York 46 42
New Jersey 47 39
Connecticut 48 44
Massachusetts 49 45
Vermont 50 49
New Hampshire 51 48

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