According to a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report reflecting data from 2011 to 2015, about 42 percent of girls and about 44 percent of boys ages 15-19 reported that they’d had sex. Both numbers continue a gradual decades-long decline: In 1988, 51 percent of girls and 60 percent of boys in the same age group answered affirmatively on the question of sexual activity…

Teen pregnancy and birthrates have been falling since the early 1990s and reached a historic low in 2015. Public health experts credit a combination of widespread access to contraception, plus the decrease in the percentage of teens having sex.