Teen Preggars Rate Increase Due to Hispanics?
According to an article in The Washington Post,
Rise in teenage pregnancy rate spurs new debate on arresting it
By Rob Stein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
The pregnancy rate among teenage girls in the United States has jumped for the first time in more than a decade, raising alarm that the long campaign to reduce motherhood among adolescents is faltering, according to a report released Tuesday.
...
The cause of the increase is the subject of debate. Several experts blamed the increase in teen pregnancies on sex-education programs that focus on encouraging abstinence. Others said the reversal could be due to a variety of factors, including an increase in poverty, an influx of Hispanics and complacency about AIDS, prompting lax use of birth control such as condoms.
Wow. An influx of Hispanics, huh? If I were Hispanic I suppose I'd be pretty pissed by that statement, specially without any evidence in support of that claim.
.
posted by The Sarcasticynic @ 2/02/2010 07:25:00 AM
6 comments
6 Comments:
Though it may not be cited in the Post article, there is evidence. Statistics (cited below) show that Hispanics have the highest teen pregnancy rate of the three major ethnic groups in the US. Non-Hispanic Whites have a rate of 43 per-mil, Blacks 123 per-mil, Hispanics 125 per-mil. So an influx of Hispanics, statistically speaking, will cause an increase in teen pregnancies.
This data was found on page 16 of http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/USTPtrends.pdf.
Be careful not to let notions of racial sensitivity cloud the facts.
Robert, I took a look at your reference and have confirmed your findings. By your own observation, note that the rate for Blacks (123/mil) is not that far off the Hispanics (125/mil,) specially when compared to Whites (43/mil,) yet the article mentions nothing about an influx of Blacks as a cause for the increase in the rate of pregnancy.
I refer you to Pages 2-3 of this same article which states the figures for 2006: Blacks, 126.3/mil, Hispanics, 126.6/mil, and Whites, 44/mil; an even closer rate between the Hispanics and Blacks.
If I were Black, I might be a little perturbed to have been excluded from the generalization made in The Washington Post.
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unless slavery just became legal again, I doubt that Blacks are going to be doing much "inward fluxing". Immigration from Africa is negligible. Besides, unless I'm mistaken, "Black" refers to descendents of slaves (the kind whose first language is English/AAVE), not new African immigrants. Black population growth rate, therefore, is limited to the birthrate among Blacks already here.
I don't know how "White" is defined, but the low teen pregnancy rate among Whites renders that question irrelevant.
Hispanics, on the other hand, have lately grown prolifically as a demographic group in the US because of a large amount of immigration from South and Central America. The group is the only one of the three that grows significantly more than it's birthrate.
Maybe it's because I live in San Antonio, Texas that the enormous Hispanic influx is so obvious from my perspective. Hispanics outnumber Whites here tremendously.
But, demographic statistics aside, how would the statement from the Post article offend anyone? Perhaps, if they'd used the term "filthy beaners" in place of "Hispanics", it might be offensive. Lol.
¡Pero que embarazados estamos! Jajaja
Touché, Robert - you make good points.
Regarding who could be offended by the article, I was just being facetious - I am, after all, The Sarcasticynic.
That you are, indeed. :)
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