The determinants of sexual intercourse before age 16

doi:10.1016/S1054-139X(99)00095-6

Journal of Adolescent Health

Volume 27, Issue 2, August 2000, Pages 136-147

https://doi.org/10.1016/S1054-139X(99)00095-6 Get rights and content

Abstract

Purpose: To identify risk and protective factors for initiation of sexual intercourse before age 16 years at the level of the individual, family, and school.

Methods: A longitudinal study based on a cohort of 1020 people born in Dunedin, New Zealand in 1972/73 and followed up to age 21 years. Demographic characteristics of the sample were similar to the New Zealand population of that age, except that a smaller proportion (3%) were Maori or Pacific Island Polynesian. Information on individual, family and school factors was collected by interview with parents at ages 3, 5, 7 and 9 years and then by postal questionnaire two-yearly up to 15 years. Subjects were assessed two-yearly from age 3 years and interviewed about their behaviours and ambitions at ages 11, 13, and 15 years. Questions about age at first intercourse were asked by computer at age 21 years. Multivariate logistic regression was used to model associations with age of first intercourse less than 16 years.

Results: Data on age at first intercourse were available for 926/1020 (91%) of surviving members of the cohort assembled at age 3 years. Overall 27.5% of males and 31.7% of females reported sexual intercourse before age 16 years. In multivariate analyses the independent predictors for early sexual initiation for males were: not having outside home interests at age 13 years, no religious activity at age 11 years, not being attached to school at age 15 years, a low reading score, and a diagnosis of conduct disorder in early adolescence. For females, independent predictors were: socioeconomic status in the middle range, mother having her first child before age 20 years, IQ in the middle range, not being attached to school, being in trouble at school, planning to leave school early, cigarette smoking and higher self-esteem score.

Conclusions: Individual and school factors appear to be more important than family composition or socioeconomic status in the decision to have sexual intercourse before age 16 years. The lowering of age at first intercourse may be partly a cohort effect related to high rates of teenage childbearing in the mothers’ generation, and to changes in social acceptability of early sexual behaviour.

Introduction

The substantial lowering of the age of first sexual intercourse, along with the unchanging age at first long-term sexual union, seen in industrialised countries, has lengthened the period of unstable sexual relationships. This has increased the vulnerability of adolescents to sexually transmitted diseases 1, 2, 3. In both the United States and New Zealand, adolescent pregnancy rates are high compared to other developed countries 4, 5. Most young women who had sexual intercourse before age 16 years reported, at age 21, that they should have waited longer before having sex (6). A continuing rise in sexual risk behaviours is not inevitable, as has been shown by the latest results of the Youth Risk Behaviour Survey in the United States, showing that fewer high school students were sexually experienced in 1997 compared to 1991 (7).

Biological, family, peer, school and community factors all may influence the age of initiation of sexual intercourse (8). Some investigators have emphasized factors in the current family environment as determining decisions about sexual behaviour (9), while others believe that the child or adolescent is an actor as well as a reactor, selecting and shaping the environment to which she has been exposed (10). The latter emphasis leads to a consideration of individual factors, such as personality and biological characteristics, in determining behaviour. We agree with the approach of Small and Luster (11) that there are many diverse paths to a particular behaviour and that it is unlikely that any one theoretical orientation will fully explain early sexual activity. This is also implied by Jessor, who has described a loose explanatory framework for adolescent risk behaviour, which is akin to the epidemiological concept of the web of causation (12). The framework consists of distinct domains: biology, social environment, perceived environment, personality and behaviour.

Even though populations of Western countries are subject to similar social and cultural forces which determine the overall increase in early sexual intercourse (13), these forces have different effects on individuals. Individual, family, and community factors are still important in determining an individual’s vulnerability to negative developmental outcomes (11). Indeed factors which affect individual vulnerability may be the only ones that clinicians, parents and school teachers might be able to influence. As society changes, the importance of these factors may change too, so it is important to look at them for recent generations.

Our study provides a special opportunity to examine the relative importance of social factors and individual factors as predictors of early sexual intercourse in a population in which approximately one-third of both young men and young women have experienced sexual intercourse before age 16 years. We have chosen to compare those who have experienced intercourse before age 16 years with the rest of the cohort, because we have already shown that females in this group report higher rates of coercion at first intercourse and subsequent regret, and both sexes report higher rates of sexually transmitted diseases (6). Sixteen years is also the legal age of consent in New Zealand.The longitudinal and multidisciplinary nature of the research has enabled us to examine a wide range of factors collected earlier in life, in the domains already shown to be important for determining adolescent risk behaviour, in relation to later sexual activity.

Section snippets

Methods

The members of the sample were enrolled in the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study, a longitudinal study of a cohort born in Dunedin, New Zealand between 1 April 1972 and 31 March 1973. The sample members were first assessed at three years of age when 1037 of 1139 eligible children were seen. Since then the sample members have been seen every two years until age 15 years, then at ages 18 and 21 years. Most have been assessed within a month of their birthday. The sample was

Results

Of the 1037 members of the cohort formed at age 3 years, 1,020 were believed to be alive at the 21 year old assessment in 1993 and 1994. Of these, nine could not be contacted, 19 refused to participate in the study, 42 completed a telephone or shortened assessment that did not include questions on sexual behaviour, 14 declined to answer the questions on sexual behaviour, and for one person the computer failed to save the responses. Thus 935 (91.7% of survivors) completed the questions on sexual

Discussion

In this birth cohort, where similar proportions of young men and women reported first intercourse before age 16 years, the characteristics of males and females who had early intercourse differed. For males, there were more characteristics which predicted early intercourse (in the unadjusted analyses) than was the case for the females. Thus for males socioeconomic status, parental education, maternal teenage birth, family structure and functioning, outside home activities, religious activities,

Acknowledgements

Supported by the Health Research Council of New Zealand and the Phyllis Paykel Memorial Scholarship.

This study was part of the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study, directed by Dr. Phil Silva. We thank Louise Garrett and Denise Powell who monitored the interviews, and other staff who were involved in data collection for earlier phases of the study. We appreciate helpful comments from David Ferguson, Rob McGee, Libby Plumridge and Sheila Williams. We particularly thank the

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International articleThe determinants of sexual intercourse before age 16

Abstract

Introduction

Section snippets

Methods

Results

Discussion

Acknowledgements

J Adolesc Health

Soc Sci Med

Balliere’s Clinical Obstetrics and Gynaecology

J Adolesc Health

J Adolescence

Public Health

Adolescents, sexual behaviour and implications for an epidemic of HIV/AIDS among the young

Genitourin Med

Sexually transmitted diseases among teenagers in England and Wales

Commun Dis Rep CDR Rev

Effect of changes in human ecology and behaviour on patterns of sexually transmitted diseases, including immunodeficiency virus infection

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A