Contraceptive Use

    According to Terry and Manlove (2000), contraceptive use trends have been on the rise since the 1990's. They have found a dramatic increase in different types of contraceptive use during a females first sexual encounter (ages 15-19). They find this data in the years of 1982 - 1995. Birth control pill use remained at a solid 8% over the 13 year period which shows that maybe situational factors, according to the females age, affects the access or use of birth control. Condom use showed the highest increase starting at 23% at 1982 increasing to 63% in 1995. Another really interesting find is that the withdrawal technique decreased from a 13% use rate to a 4% use rate. Other methods went from 4% to 1% use which could be due to the increase of other contraceptive use trends as well as the ineffectiveness of these methods (doesn't list what these methods are). This contraceptive use increase has been seen across all ethnic groups as well. However, at the time of most recent sex, there is a decrease from 77% contraceptive use in 1988 to a 69% use rate of any method in 1995. This could be due to situational factors throughout each recent sex experience such as wanting spontaneity, the person engaging in it is a high-risk taker at that time period, or alcohol and drug use affecting judgement.