In theory, helping students avoid teen pregnancies should be a simple concept: Give them free condoms, and teen fertility should drop. But a new working paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research finds that free access to condoms in schools actually increased teen fertility by 10 percent.
Researchers say that’s because many of the schools did not mandate students receive counseling when they requested condoms.
“Access to condoms for the entire high-school-aged population in a county would lead to about five extra births per 1,000 teenage women, or a 10 percent increase relative to the mean,” researchers wrote. “Since the average program covered about one-third of the teenage women in the county, the typical program led to an additional two births per 1,000 teenage women.”
The study also shows that gonorrhea rates for women rose after free condoms were provided. Approximately 2.43 additional cases of gonorrhea per 1,000 women were the result of the free condoms.
The researchers themselves caution against over-generalizing their results for two reasons.
First, they say their results don’t mean that all types of birth control in school lead to more teen pregnancy. The study focused only on condoms, but cited research done by others that showed access to birth control pills or long-acting reversible contraceptives, such as birth control injections, lowered teen pregnancies.
Second, the study focused on large urban school districts in the early 1990s. Their results may look vastly different if it studied data from the last five years or so.
“Overall, teenagers today are less likely to engage in sexual activity and are less likely to become pregnant,” researchers wrote. “Condom distribution programs in today’s schools may not have the same effects as those shown here. Policymakers should therefore use caution in generalizing our results to predict the effects of condom distribution programs for today’s teens.”
Overall, teen fertility dropped in the 1990s. But that appears to be in spite of condom access in schools, not because of it.
The paper was authored by Kasey Buckles and Daniel Hungerman, both with the University of Notre Dame.
Jason Russell is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
