A six-year study the final report of which is available to download as a pdf from http://www.mathematica-mpr.com/publications/PDFs/impactabstinence.pdf examined the behaviour of more than 2,000 American teenagers and found that sexual abstinence education does not work and says that the $1.5 billion spent by the US government to promote abstinence over the past ten years has been a waste of money. The study was conducted by Mathematica Policy Research, a nonpartisan firm, which conducts policy research and surveys in healthcare, education, welfare, employment, nutrition, and early childhood.
The study (http://www.mathematica-mpr.com/welfare/abstinence.asp ) followed the sexual behaviour of teenagers from a cross-section of communities in Florida, Wisconsin, Mississippi and Virginia. Their average age was 16. Half of the sample who had received abstinence only education displayed the same sexual behaviour as those who had received sex education in which contraception was discussed. Teenagers from both sample groups had the same average age for their first sexual experience: 14.9 years, and one quarter in both groups had had sex with three or more partners. (Guardian, 16 April 2007, p3; Times, 16 April 2007, p30)
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