Boston, USA - According to a new study, religion may be the key to keeping teens in the U.S. from waiting until they are older to have sexual intercourse.
A new study was led by Janet E. Rosenbaum from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and aimed to see the various trends of teens in the U.S. in terms of their sexual activity.
They looked at data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, which looked at nearly 1,000 teens.
In terms of a virginity pledge, researchers found no difference when comparing teens who took the pledge to teens who did not in regards to waiting to have intercouse.
A virginity pledge also made teens 10% far less likely to use protection when having intercourse, meaning no birth control or condoms were used..
When they looked at religion though it was a completely different story.
Teens who were said to be religious waited until the age of 21 on average to have intercourse, compared to 17 for those who were not religious.
The study has been published in the January issue of Pediatrics.