"Best Bets" to Prevent Pregnancies and Births:
Provide Supports for Maintaining Intact Families

Alternatively, among sexually experienced adolescent females younger than age 18 in a national sample, living in a step-parent family is associated with a reduced likelihood of using any contraception at first sex compared with living with two biological parents (Manning et al., 2000). Female adolescents who lived in single-parent households were more likely to use the pill (versus a condom) at first sex than teens in a two-parent household (Manning et al., 2000). Living in a two-parent family is also associated with a reduced likelihood of teen parenthood among females and males (Afxentiou & Hawley, 1997; Haveman, Wolfe & Wilson, 1997; McLanahan & Sandefur, 1994; Stouthamer-Loeber & Wei, 1998).

Turbulence or changes in living situation are also associated with reproductive health behaviors. Higher levels of family disruption and instability, reflected by changes in parents' marital status, are associated with nonmarital childbearing by young adults (Wu & Martinson, 1993; Wu, 1996). This relationship is not simply an artifact of socioeconomic differences by family structure; instead, the relationship remains robust even in the presence of controls for family income (Wu, 1996). Moore, Morrison, and Glei's (1995b) study of adolescents aged 11 to 17 found that those who experienced their parents' marital disruption had a significantly greater risk of transitioning to first sex than adolescents not experiencing family disruption. Using longitudinal analyses, Capaldi et al. (1996) showed that adolescent boys at risk for delinquency who experienced more parental transitions (marital and nonmarital) had a greater likelihood of early sexual debut than boys from stable households. Miller, Norton, et al. (1997), using a national data set, also found that male teens whose parents had a greater number of changes in marital status were more likely to have first sexual intercourse at an early age.