Parental family experiences, the timing of first sex, and contraception☆
Introduction
In recent years, many studies have investigated the relationship between the parental family and early entrances into sexual experience, primarily motivated by social concern regarding high levels of unintended, premarital, or early childbearing. However, rarely do these studies directly explore the use of contraceptives to prevent pregnancy in early sexual experiences. This is a significant gap in our understanding of early sexual experience because not all sexual encounters lead to pregnancy—careful use of effective contraceptive methods can prevent pregnancy. Our aims are to fill this gap and build upon important advances in this area by comparing the consequences of parental family experiences that occur early in the life course to those that occur later. The result is a comprehensive investigation of the relationship between parental family experiences and early sexual behavior.
The research reported here advances our understanding of these important topics in three ways. First, we explicitly integrate contraceptive behavior into theoretical reasoning about early sexual experiences. Second, we provide new empirical evidence regarding the relationship between family experiences and contraceptive use at first sex—a relationship about which we know relatively little. Third, following from this new theoretical framework we integrate new dimensions of the parental family across the life course into empirical models of contraceptive use, explicitly comparing the consequences of the parental family in childhood and later in adolescence and young adulthood. These dimensions specifically differentiate among stepparents, cohabiting parents, single parents, and parental marriage and remarriage.
New empirical advances in modeling the relationships among family dynamics, sexual debut, and contraceptive use are possible because the 1995 National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG-Cycle V) includes detailed event history measures of parental family dynamics, first sex, and contraceptive use, and contains large over-samples of Hispanics and African–Americans. Similarly detailed parental event histories coupled with measures of first sex and contraception are not available in other US national data sources, including other rounds of the NSFG. The detailed life history measures of childhood living arrangements and parental marital relationships allow us to determine both the timing of first sex relative to parental family changes—such as parental cohabitations, marriages, and divorces—and the use of contraceptive methods to avoid pregnancy during that sexual experience. Together these unique measures provide the means to estimate dynamic, event-history models of first intercourse that incorporate change over the individual’s life course, multiple dimensions of parental family experiences, and sexual behavior with and without contraception. The results provide new insight into the links between parental family experiences, entry into sexual relationships, and contraceptive use to reduce pregnancy risk.
Section snippets
Theoretical framework
The effects of family experiences on individuals have long been of central concern to sociologists and policy makers. Research documents similarities between parents and their children both in terms of behavior and attitudes (Amato, 2000, Roche et al., 2008, Axinn and Thornton, 1993, Barber, 2000, Barber, 2001, Dittus and Jaccard, 2000, McNeely et al., 2002). Family experiences may also matter because of their relationship to parental resources. Physical monitoring and sanctions, financial
Data and methods
The data for these analyses come from the 1995 National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG-Cycle V), a nationally representative survey of women aged 15–44. The sample was drawn from households who responded to the 1993 National Health Interview Survey. The NSFG-Cycle V had a complex design, over-sampling blacks and Hispanics, and a response rate of 79%, yielding 10,847 total interviews. For a detailed discussion of sampling procedures and study design see Kelly et al. (1997). The analyses presented
Results
Table 2 presents results for the hazard of first sex for the full sample. The coefficients displayed are the multiplicative effects on the rate of first sex in a 1-month interval. An exponentiated effect greater than 1.00 represents a positive effect, less than 1.00 a negative effect, and equal to 1.00 no effect on the odds. Boxes are to draw the reader’s attention to comparisons across models and life course specifications.
Discussion and conclusion
Most of the research on young women’s sexual behavior is motivated by concerns about teenage and unintended childbearing, especially its consequences for both the mother and the child (Axinn et al., 1998, Barber et al., 1999, Finer and Henshaw, 2006, McLanahan and Bumpass, 1988). The most recent estimates show that teenage pregnancy rates have increased for the first time in 14 years (Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics, 2008) and 82% of pregnancies to 15–19 year olds were
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This research was partly supported by training grants from the National Institute of Aging (NIA 5 T32 AG000221), the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NIH/NRSA T32 HD07168), the Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan, and the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Direct all correspondence to Sarah R. Brauner-Otto, PO Box C, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS 39762 or [email protected]. Previous versions of this paper were presented at the American Sociological Association, Aug 13–15, 2004 and the Population Association of America, March 31-April 2, 2005. We are grateful to Jennifer Barber for her advice and comments on earlier drafts and to Paul Schulz for programming assistance.