According to a study in Thursday’s (4-18) American Journal of Public Health, adult men are responsible for two thirds of the babies born to teenage mothers in California in 1993. The men averaged four to six years older than the girls they impregnated. The study by Mike Males of UC Irvine concurs with findings from a 1995 study by the Alan Guttmacher Institute which combined birth certificates with the results of an overlooked 1998 federal survey of 10,000 women. School-age male peers fathered only 34.5 percent of the babies born to California girls aged 10 to 19 in 1993. About 27 percent of the births to 10 to 14 year-old girls were fathered by men aged 20 to 24. Males commented that the men at fault are not in schools or targeted for programs to combat teen pregnancy but said that California is airing public service announcements to target such men and has started an effort to prosecute more men for statutory rape.
Uncategorized
