Red states, blue states, and the stats on moral issues

Interesting.

But, maybe the argument would be that the blue states have fewer births to 15 - 17 year olds because they are getting more abortions.

Pregnancy rates are based on the sums of live births, induced abortions, and fetal deaths. Teenage pregnancy rates are available through 1999, the most recent year for which detailed abortion data have been published (12,13). The pregnancy rate per 1,000 females aged 15-19 years for 1999 was 86.7, the lowest ever reported since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), NCHS series of pregnancy estimates began in 1976. The 1999 rate was 25 percent lower than the recent peak of 116.3 in 1990. The declines in teenage pregnancy rates in the 1990s reflect reductions in both live births and induced abortions.

A number of factors have been suggested to account for the recent declines in teenage pregnancy and birth rates. There have been steady reductions in the proportions of teenagers who are sexually experienced. A report of the most recently conducted Youth Risk Behavior Survey conducted by CDC in 2001 cites findings of decreases in the proportions of teenagers who have ever had sex and who have had multiple partners, along with increases in condom use among sexually active teenagers.

Now, you might argue that, perhaps, people in liberal blue-states are less likely to marry in the first place, so it's easy for them to have a low divorce rate as well.

Kind of far-fetched (most people do end up marrying after all, red or blue state), but just to doublecheck I had Excel subract the divorce rate from the marriage rate. The lowest possible result then would mean that the number of divorces almost equals the number of marriages - bad, in the moral universe.

The result is a mishmash of blue and red - but no particular liberal slant to be detected here, in any case, either:

Here ya go, fishin.

There's city and county data at that link.

Start crunching.

I think we've had this thread a couple of times before.

Your mismash doesn't prove anything one way or the other here. According to the census data people in the red states generally do marry earlier (which generally leads to more divorces) and tend to marry instead of living together (which doesn't require a divorce).[..]

Based on those numbers the red states are more likely to marry and marry young than the blue states. You can't get a divorce if you aren't married.

squinney wrote:

Interesting.

But, maybe the argument would be that the blue states have fewer births to 15 - 17 year olds because they are getting more abortions.

Yep, I was just looking into that. That is to say, what I was thinking was that a conservative cultural pessimist might say: well, the number of births must have gone down because they're all getting abortions now!

That, however, is not true. In fact - using the same source as linked above - the opposite is true.

Teenage pregnancy rates have also "fallen steeply in recent years", and that has led to a decrease in both live births and abortions:

The risks for IPH among white and black females varied across states, but were highest in southern states. [..] Rates among white females were higher in southern states and Rocky Mountain states. Rates were lowest among white females in New England and the upper Midwest. Among black females, the highest rates were clustered in southern states, but rates were unstable in many western and New England states. The highest rate among white females was in South Carolina; the highest rate among black females was in Arkansas.

During 1981--1998, IPHs decreased by 47.2% in the United States. IPH rates have decreased among both whites and blacks. During 1981--1998, rates among white females decreased 23%, and rates among white males decreased 61.9%. Rates among black females decreased 47.6%, and rates among black males decreased 76.4%.

The proportion of births to unmarried mothers varies considerably by State. In 2002 the proportion unmarried ranged from 17 percent in Utah to 47 percent in Louisiana and Mississippi and 56 percent in the District of Columbia. [S]ome parts of the country, most notably the Southeast, stand out with most of the States in the region having relatively high proportions of births occurring to unmarried mothers.

A State's racial and ethnic composition is clearly related to the percentage of births to unmarried mothers. States with large non-Hispanic black, American Indian, and/or Hispanic populations relative to the total tend to have a higher proportion of births to unmarried mothers. Other factors including age structure and social norms likely also contribute to the observed differences by State.

After all, the (very blue) state of New York has a 39% minority population - and the (very red) state of Mississippi has a 40% minority population. But New York is in the Top 10 of states with the lowest teenage birth rates; and Mississippi is in the Top 3 of the states with the highest rates. Mississippi (60% white) and Texas (50% white) have practically as high a rate of teenage births as DC (only 30% white).