I was going through the blogs in class trying to find a short blog that I thought could be interesting. As summer is approaching and I remember my prom being around this time in May of last year, Freakonomic’ s blog post titled “Prom Effect” caught my eye. The link is provided: http://freakonomics.com/2009/09/23/the-prom-effect/
Although the blog post is from 2009, the bloggers stated that studies have shown less educated women has been studied to have their babies born in the winter. They affiliated this pattern in conception to “soirees” such as prom. And as prom is usually in spring, the nine months period for baby development will mean the baby will come out in the winter supporting the study. I refuse to believe that prom and other social events will have anything to do with the patterns of conceptions. Firstly, less educated women are often lower in the socioeconomic status and the fact is that most of them cannot afford to go to prom and if they do the opportunity cost of spending money on a dress, limo, dance ticket, dinner, etc is much too high relative to other products of consumption they can get. There demand and willingness to pay for prom is much less compared to other individuals. As a high school, prom tickets are also never lowered as those are sunk costs needed to be paid to rent the prom revenue thus demand of the lower socioeconomic women will never meet the quantity supplied at a lower price. Other costs that, if the person does decide to go to prom, are variable costs that are determined by the individual such as the prom dress, jewelry, and transportation. Secondly, the study given by the bloggers do not list the age of the less educated women so you cannot affiliate the less educated women with younger students. Although there has been a rise in teenage pregnancy, I don’t believe that seniors in highschool especially who are preparing for college will risk their total utility (happiness) for the next nine months for a higher utility without the proper protection.
There are many other factors that can contribute to the findings in the study other than prom. For example, December is the cutoff date for when a couple can claim a year’s worth of deductions for only 1 or 2 months of actually having the child to care for so having a baby in December could be what the family is shooting for. Thus the demand for children is highest around spring because that will help with tax deductions. Inaddition, the seasonal change in spring could have led to a scientific explanation for hormonal changes in the women which has nothing to do decision-making.
Inconclusion, I think the blog post is extremely narrow-minded in pointing out young individuals as the cause of the seasonal pattern of conception and assuming that social parties such as prom, etc will contribute a significant amount of conception to births in winter.
I went to a high school with many people you may consider “lower in socioeconomic status.” Many of them went to prom, but some did not go. I would definitely categorize these girls as those who could get knocked up their prom night and have their baby in December, but a decent amount were already pregnant (we had so many pregnant people at my high school there were special desks for them). I also can’t ignore the fact that those considered “higher in socioeconomic status” never ended up in a similar situation (pregnant). Maybe they have other preventative methods that the other girls couldn’t afford. It may so happen that some girls do follow the trend the article discusses, but there were plenty of other pregnant girls at my high school year round, so I do agree that there may be more contributing factors than just prom.
This article reminds me of the articles we read on the first day of class (also from Freakonomics) where the author jumps to conclusions from very little information. As much as I do agree that there is a chance that girls can get pregnant at their prom, the author does not seem to mention that “soirees” could happen any time of the year. Although my high school did not have other dances like Homecoming, most other high schools did, which provide other opportunities throughout the year for “soirees” to be the main cause of teenage pregnancy (according to the author’s logic, not my own). I think the amount of assumptions in this article make it completely not believable.
I feel like anyone could get pregnant on their prom night regardless of socioeconomic standing or education–these mistakes are credited to poor education specifically in relation to teaching young people about reproductive health and contraception, not in education as a whole. Even well educated people may be taught abstinence only in their schools’ health programs (I was taught abstinence only in high school–the school system refused to promote contraceptives). I also agree that “less educated women” does not necessarily translate to “high school girls.” The majority of women who would fall under the “less educated” category would probably not be high schoolers at all. These two points combined have me less than convinced that there is any truth to “prom effect” as laid out by the Freakonomics article described above.