Teenagers who promise to stay virgins until tying the knot are just as likely to have premarital marriage as those who don’t vow abstinence, a new study published in the January issue of the journal Pediatrics suggests. 

The data used in the study, conducted by Janet E. Rosenbaum of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, came from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, which consisted of 934 students in high school.

Rosenbaum drew a comparison between 289 teens who were 17 years old on average in 1996, when they pledged to remain virgin, and 645 who didn’t vow to refrain but were otherwise similar.

What the findings disclosed is that taking a virginity pledge “doesn’t seem to make any difference at all in any sexual behavior,” according to Rosenbaum. 82 percent of high school students who had vowed not to have sex before marriage had withdrawn their promise in the end. Besides, there was little difference in the number of participants in both groups who had lost their virginity, the age at which it happened or their number of sexual partners, researchers said.

The study also disclosed that the percentage of teenagers who used birth control pills or condoms was 10 points lower for those who had vowed abstinence.

So one more time it is debated the issue why the federal government continues to invest in abstinence-only sex education. "What have we gained if we only encourage young people to delay sex until they are older, but then when they do become sexually active -- and most do well before marriage -- they don't protect themselves or their partners?" said Sarah Brown of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.