Antecedents of Pregnancy among Unmarried Adolescents

Using data from 2158 young adults who were 1st surveyed as 7th grade students in a random half of the junior high schools in the Independent School District of Houston Texas in 1971 multivariate casual models were tested to predict out-of-wedlock adolescent pregnancy. Among the males having a girlfriend become pregnant is associated with school difficulties low parental socioeconomic status and high popularity. Among females pregnancy risk is related to race (black women more likely than white women to experience early nonmarital pregnancy; Hispanic women are less likely) low socioeconomic status father absence number of siblings school difficulties family stress and popularity. The 1981-83 followup study found 26% of the women but only 15% of the men reporting that they (or their girlfriends) had experienced adolescent pregnancies with most of the sex difference probably explained by the tendency of adolescent girls to date older males. The analyses do not support culture-of-poverty assumptions that culturally transmitted feelings of self-esteem and fatalism cause the disadvantaged to have more unplanned pregnancies. Powerlessness is weakly related to 18 to 20-year-old males involvement in nonmarital pregnancies; surprisingly it was found that powerlessness is inversely related to pregnancy risk for girls in father-present families possibly because girls who feel powerless may be more submissive to parental authority that discourages sexual activity. Further research might explain why family experiences can affect a girls pregnancy risk more than a boys and how school experiences influence pregnancy susceptibility.