Quote:
Originally Posted by DrPhil
There's nothing racist or classist about the bolded statement.
Structurally: The South has a higher concentration of people from lower socioeconomic status and racial and ethnic minorities (which is correlated with lower socioeconomic status). As there is a "Bible Belt" there is also a "poverty belt" and a "black and brown belt."
Culturally: The rest can be explained through the lack of sex (and overall) education, the cultural acceptness of (premarital sex and) single motherhood in many communities, and as you mentioned the abortion-birth ratio. Perhaps abortion-birth ratio won't explain that much of the variation in teen births since some of the states may have significant teen abortions and births.
The above structural and cultural effects were long believed to be buffered by religiosity, traditionalism and "morality." Unfortunately, generally speaking, norms have changed and traditional social ties have declined.
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There's always a risk of being accused of having said, "well minorities are responsible for/participate in all of society's ills at a disproportionate rate" and that's what I was thinking might happen. You've accurately stated what I was thinking in your "structurally" and "culturally" paragraphs.
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