How Do Teenagers Answer Questions About Contraceptive Use? Differences Between Young Women’s and Young Men’s Answers

High school aged women say they use different methods to prevent pregnancy than do high school aged men. Young men are more likely to say the couple used a condom and young women are more likely to say they used birth control pills. The differences remain large and statistically significant after controlling for age and ethnicity. There are several ways to explain this. The differences might partly reflect differences in actual use or differences in the partners’ knowledge about the methods they use. But young men and women also appear to over-report methods that highlight their personal responsibility, possibly even when they did not use those methods.