Study Shows Teen Male's Attitude Towards Sex and Pregnancy May Determine What Kind Of Father He Will Become

For many years, researchers have always made women their subject when they talked about parenthood and family. In a recent study, however, experts studied men's behavior and how it can determine their attitude towards having a family and what kind of father they will be.

In an article by Tech Times, researchers at the Northwestern University did a study focusing on men's behavior and fatherhood. The research suggests that it is possible to know what kind of father a guy will be according to how he views sex, pregnancy, and birth control. The same research also determined which guys will stay with their future and those who will be absentee fathers.

Dr. Craig Garfiled and his team found that those with a laid back attitude towards sex will possibly become fathers who didn't live with their children. According to Garfield, they were surprised how they can predict whether males will later become a teenage father or a non-resident father based only on what they tell researchers during their teenage years, Medicaldaily.com shared. "We're expanding male reproductive health across the lifespan and beginning to see how early beliefs relate to later outcomes and health, including fatherhood," he explained.

In the study, the group interviewed 10,253 teenage and young male adults. They were asked to react to statements like, "If you had sexual intercourse, your friends respect you more" or "It wouldn't be all that bad if you got someone pregnant at this time in your life."

Two decades later, the team followed up on these same subjects, only older, and compared their answers to their initial interview. They also checked if the subjects ever had a child, lived with a child, and how old they were when they impregnated a woman.

The results revealed that those who took more risk in their sexual behaviors dramatically increased their chances of becoming an absentee father especially if the act resulted to an unintended pregnancy. The team also found that those who didn't really show much concern having an unsafe sexual intercourse increased his odds of not living with his children to 30%, and those who think it was okay to get a girl pregnant at the age of 20 had the same result too.

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