Teen birthrates decline in U.S.

Wednesday, Aug. 9, 2000 | 1:50 a.m.

SUN STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

ATLANTA -- Teenagers are having babies at the lowest rate in at least 60 years, and everyone is taking credit -- from religious groups that push abstinence to advocates for contraceptives and sex education in schools.

Analysts from several viewpoints agreed Tuesday on this much: Teens are more terrified than ever of sexually transmitted diseases, and they are putting off starting families to take jobs in the booming economy.

For every 1,000 girls ages 15 to 19, there were 49.6 births last year -- the lowest since the statistic was first recorded six decades ago, the National Center for Health Statistics said.

Nevada has also seen a decline in teen births, dropping from the highest rate of teen births nationally to fourth, according to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"Which, statistically speaking, is not significant at all," said Donald Carns, professor of sociology at UNLV.

According to Carns, kids today are not limited by a circumscribed set of career options, and instead are bombarded by merchandizing that promotes an extended adolescence.

"If you want to talk about 90s teen culture, you look to Las Vegas. Not that it's necessarily the source, but it reflects all these things. The seductions here are tremendous. And it's in a town which truly has never really devoted itself to kids," Carns said.

Nationally, the teen birthrate dropped consistently throughout the 1990s, falling 20 percent for the decade.

The drop was particularly sharp among girls ages 15 to 17, whose rate fell 6 percent from its level in 1998 to 28.7 births per 1,000.

In Clark County, however, which has the highest birthrate in the state, birthrates dropped only among white teens in 1998. Rates increased for blacks, Hispanics and Asians. Of those increases, Hispanics experienced the highest increases, with births among girls age 15 to 17 jumping 125 percent and births among girls aged 18 to 19 increasing 317 percent.

Alice Costello, an administrator at the Clark County Health District, attributed the astronomical increase in teen births among Hispanics to a population burst and a sudden increase in the number of teens moving into the age range where they can have kids.

Nationally, births fell 2 percent among 18-to-19-year olds and 4 percent among girls ages 10 to 14.

Sun reporter Jeffrey Libby contributed to this report.