The effects of sex education on teen sexual activity and teen pregnancy

This paper empirically examines the relationship between enrollment in sex education and subsequent sexual behavior for U.S. teenagers during the 1970s. The estimates indicate that enrollment in sex education was associated with earlier sexual activity for females in this cohort. Sex education also was associated with earlier pregnancy for some groups of females, but these effects are smaller and not always statistically significant. For both types of transitions, the effect of sex education appears to have been larger for women with fewer alternative sources of sexual information. In contrast, sex education had much less impact on male transitions into sexual activity. Within-family analyses using sibling data reveal qualitatively similar patterns. Overall, the evidence suggests chat sex education in the 1970s had some causal impact on teen sexual behavior, probably in significant part by providing information that enabled teens to alter the risks of sexual activity. Rarely has there been a more thoroughly discredited idea than the notion that widespread availability of contraceptives and knowledge of their use leads to a diminished rate of teen pregnancy and abortion. Today, with much more sex education and availability of birth control than there was 25 years ago, we also have higher rates of teen pregnancy, soaring illegitimacy, and a much higher abortion rate.