An Exploratory Study of Young Urban Males

ings. Few studies have sought information on young men’s attitudes about parenting and sexual behavior.5 While previous research has shown that young men living in areas with substan-dard social and economic resources are more likely than those from more advan-taged backgrounds to say that they have fathered a child or that their partner has been pregnant,6 there are also young men in low-income areas who do not father children during adolescence. Our objec-tive was to investigate whether there are differences in sexual behavior and atti-tudes toward contraceptive use, preg-nancy and parenting between young males who have fathered a child and those who have not, all of whom are from sim-ilar, presumably high-risk backgrounds. We also examined potential differences be-tween the two groups ’ family relation-ships, the prevalence of teenage preg-nancy among their peers and family members, and their perceptions of others’ attitudes toward teenage pregnancy and childbearing