Qualitative data from a new study also shows that the highly unfavorable economic and social circumstances in which slum residents live influence their sexual behavior considerably. Bongaarts and his colleague Charles F. Westoff, Professor of Demographic Studies and Sociology Emeritus, Princeton University, used a mathematical model to tease out the relative effects of two key factors affecting the rate of abortion. They examined the potential roles of contraceptive prevalence and contraceptive effectiveness and ascertained the level of increase in these factors that would be required to reduce the abortion rate to near zero.
Conventional wisdom holds that early fertility equals high fertility.
In South Africa, however, where adolescent childbearing is common, fertility has dropped to fewer than three births per woman, one of the lowest rates in sub-Saharan Africa. Researchers investigated this situation through in-depth focus groups. They found that educational and employment opportunities compel many adolescent mothers to postpone having a second child. Before Male Circumcision Is Advocated A growing body of research shows that uncircumcised men in certain parts of Africa are twice as likely as circumcised men to be HIV infected. These findings suggest that male circumcision may offer a measure of protection against HIV infection, and public health experts have begun to debate the possibility of encouraging male circumcision as an anti-HIV intervention.