Internal poverty and teen pregnancy

The subjects for the present study were drawn from the female students who participated in the National Education Longitudinal Study (NELS) initial ei ghth-grade data collection. Adolescent females who later became pregnant we re matched on race, birth month, and birth year with adolescent females who did not report a pregnancy. The study examined selected predictor variable s from the baseline 1988 wave of data in relation to the outcome variable o f pregnancy status. Results indicated a statistically significant differenc e in locus of control between those females who later became pregnant and t hose who later did not experience a pregnancy during adolescence. Those who later became pregnant were much more likely to have an external locus of c ontrol (p = .0001). Females who later became pregnant were also more likely to have a poorer sense of personal efficacy (p = .0001). Finally, females who later experienced a teen pregnancy had more traditional occupational ex pectations (p = .006) and lower educational expectations (p = .001) than di d those who did not later report a teen pregnancy.