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From October's Mapping America, a project of the Family Research Council.
by Patrick F. Fagan, Ph.D. and D. Paul Sullins, Ph.D.
Women with Fewer Unwanted Pregnancies Are More Likely to Worship Weekly and to Have Grown Up in Intact Families
The number of unwanted pregnancies is lowest for women who grew up in an intact married family and who now worship at least weekly. According to the National Survey of Family Growth, women who grew up in an intact married family and now worship at least weekly have an average of 0.3 unwanted pregnancies in their lifetimes, followed by women who grew up in an intact married family and now never worship (0.51), those who grew up in other family structures and now worship at least weekly (0.63), and those who grew up in other family structures and now never worship (0.77).
Examining structure of family of origin only, women who grew up in an intact married family have an average of 0.39 unwanted pregnancies in their lifetime, followed by women from married stepfamilies (0.54), single divorced parent families (0.69), cohabiting stepfamilies (0.79), intact cohabiting families (0.86), and always single parent families (0.9).
Examining current religious attendance only, women who worship at least weekly have an average of 0.43 unwanted pregnancies in their lifetime, followed by women who attend religious services between one and three times a month (0.50), those who attend religious services less than once a month (0.57), and those who never attend religious services (0.66).
Related Insights from Other Studies
Several other studies corroborate the direction of these findings. James Nonnemaker of Research Triangle Institute and colleagues found a positive association between adolescent public religiosity and a lower likelihood of pregnancy.
Scott South of the State University of New York at Albany also found that “growing up in a family headed by a single mother increases the risk of a premarital birth.”
In a study of black adolescent females in high-poverty neighborhoods, Mignon Moore of Columbia University and P. Lindsay Chase-Lansdale of Northwestern University reported that “[l]iving in married households is associated with a reduced risk of pregnancy” and that “teenagers in single-mother families have higher odds of experiencing” pregnancy, though “adolescents in cohabiting households were not found to have…significantly higher odds of pregnancy.”
As the evidence shows, women who grew up in an intact married family and who now worship weekly are likely to have fewer unwanted pregnancies in their lifetimes.
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