Young women who have supportive parents, teachers, and mentors telling them that they have real opportunities to succeed, generally take more care to avoid pregnancy because they know it would hinder their success (and such care is more readily available to them). Whereas, women who don't have the above but do have mothers/aunts/sisters/cousins/­friends who are all unwed mothers, justifiably do not feel that they have lots of opportunites to succeed, and therefore may not feel that they have as much to lose by becoming pregnant. It would be lovely if everybody could have a great mother and father, but that's going to take awhile. In the meantime, perhaps as a society we can help to fill-in the gap. Lesson from Juno: do not let tradition and stigma drive you to a worse fate than necessary.

you know, i've always wondered why a girl who was raised in a situation as you describe would allow herself to repeat the cycle instead of working like hell to be the ONE in her family to END it.

same thing with starving africans that i see on tv... now these people have NOTHING... not a roof over their heads, a drop of water to drink, a bite of food or a rag to wear but sure has shit they will spread thier legs begging for even more misery to befall them. next thing you know they are carrying the lifeless swollen baby they've delivered to a hospital crying for help. they KNEW they had nothing to offer a child WHY OH WHY allow the cylce to continue???

i'm actually seriously questioning this logic... not throwing this out to provoke

Because they don't have birth control in Africa and other poor countries, they wouldn't have the money to buy it if it was available, and they have no other pleasure in life save to sexual urge, In America, these girls who don't have role models, who live with all unwed family, have a very difficult route to figure out for themselves.

you're judging people in another country now based on a few pictures you've seen and statements you've heard and opinions you have. and then you judge them from your privileged (in comparison) point of view. wow. if that's not a recipe for saying something ignorant, i don't know what is.

Africa is a big continent filled with many different peoples that inhabit the many countries that live there. It's ignorant to make any such statement about Africa as a whole, but a lot of people do, so i'm going to let that slide a little. So if you really want an answer to your question, do a little research first. Pick one particular group of people that you want to find out about. Then find out what kind of education and healthcare the people have access to. Learn a bit about their culture and what they think about modern education and healthcare. THEN maybe you can actually begin to start formulating some well thought out ideas about what causes people to act how they do. You can apply that same thinking to your neighbors as well and see how amazing the world can be when you actually try to step a little bit into someone else's shoes...