Risking the Future Adolescent Sexuality, Pregnancy, and Childbearing, Volume II Working Papers only (1987) / Chapter Skim
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1. Factors Affecting Initiation of Sexual Intercourse
1. Factors Affecting Initiation of Sexual Intercourse
Pages 7-35
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From page 7... ...
Th is was not only due to the d if f iculty of obtaining information on sexual behavior, but also to the assumption that intercourse takes place primer fly within mart Sage. However, recently the study of sexual intercourse itself has taken on more importance.
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From page 8... ...
In particular, the empir ical evidence on the linkages between background factors and sexual intercourse is presented, followed by evidence on the intervening linkages between background and intercourse. The chapter focus is on the research that sheds some light on the process whereby background factors affect sexual activity, that is, on explaining sexual activity.
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From page 9... ...
According to 1979 data f rom a national Isle, about half of all females who have had sexual intercourse have had only one partner (Table 1.
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One issue of importance is the extent to which initiation of sexual intercourse is voluntary or involuntary, such a. a result of rape or incest.
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Probably the most important inf luence on children is the ir family of origin. There are many aspects to the family that could affect sexual behavior: 1)
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13 Modeling. Children appear to learn the behavior of models without actual rewards and punishments.
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From page 14... ...
also point to racism, sexism and ethnocentr ism as factors limiting alternatives. Individual opportunities for sexual intercourse may be limited indirectly as well.
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From page 15... ...
In a model of sexual intercourse and masturbation for white males which included age, pubertal development (Tanner Scale} and level of serum androgenic hormones, only the hormonal influences (particularly free testosterone) retained their effects while the other effects were reduced to zero (Udry et al., 1985)
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From page 16... ...
found that once a number of factors relating to sexual activity were controlled, young women in larger communities were less likely to report having exper fenced intercourse than those in smaller communities. Until it is better understood what urban-rurs1 or community size represent, the relationship between this dimension and sexual intercourse among teens will remain ambiguous.
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From page 17... ...
Hogan and Ritagawa ( 1985) found that black females age 15 to 19 living in a poverty area of Chicago had a much higher rate of initial sexual intercourse than peers not living in a poverty area.
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. The chances that a young blat woman living in a poverty area of Chicago would have had sexual intercourse was twice as higr.
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Table 1.4 provides national estimates of the proportion of Hispanic teens sexually active in 1983. Note that Hispanic teens are apparently more likely than whites but less likely than blacks to be sexually active at each age .
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From page 20... ...
The authors found a strong assoc fat ion between attend ing a see regaled school and the number of friends the respondent reported had had sexual intercourse and between the number of friends reported to have had sexual intercourse and whether the respondent had intercourse. Blacks in segregated schools were more likely and whites less likely to have had sex.
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From page 21... ...
T ime Per iod/H istor ical Context Teenage and premarital sexual activity are not new, of course. Table 1.5 presents data gathered free a variety of different studies on the reported premar ital adolescent sexual exper fence of ear ly cohorts of American youth.
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From page 22... ...
In contrast, ache proportion who reported having had sexual intercourse had leveled off for black women between 3976 and 1979; between 1979 and 1982 the proportion of black never married teens in metropolitan areas who reported that they had exper fenced their sexual debut declined slightly to 53 percent (Table 1.2~. The difference between the sexual experience of white and black females appears to have declined slightly over time.
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From page 23... ...
Two important additional developments often Implicated in changes varying from increased divorce to declining religiosity are the development and widespread use of the contraceptive pill and the increased employment of women outside the home. There is no direct empirical evidence on the association of increased teen sexual activity with any of these broader societal changes.
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From page 24... ...
This appears to hold for both mothers and fathers (Zelnik et al., 1980~. Only two studies failed to find such a relationship: Bogan and Kitagawa (1985} found no relationship between the education of the mother and whether her daughter had initiated sexual intercourse.
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Another study found that, in contrast to the results for girls, boys were snore likely to inititate sexual intercourse following a change in maternal marital status (Newcomer sod Udry, 1983)
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From page 26... ...
to initiate sexual activity early. The same researchers also found that having a s ister who is a teenager mother was associated with a significantly higher rate of initial sexual intercourse among black females 13 to 19 in 1979 (Bog en and Ritagawa, 1985~.
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From page 27... ...
As a result peer inf luence may have been heavily overrated as a source of increased sexual activity among teenagers, part icularly among blacks and among white males (Ch ilman, 1983; Billy and Udry, 1985b,c)
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From page 28... ...
Another study (Lewis and Lewis, 1984 ~ shows that children are often challenged by ~dares. from peers to engage in risk-taking behavior, and about one~third of older children actually did what they were dared to don Among .7th and 8th graders, boys were dared to perform acts of vandalism or violence while girls were fared to engage in various sexual acts, ranging from a kiss to sexual intercourse.
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From page 29... ...
Sexual intercourse occurs early in the sequence. It is followed by petting and other sexual behaviors earlier in the scale for whites (Smith and Udry, 19851.
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From page 30... ...
The researchers found several personality measures associated with early onset of sexual intercourse. In particular, men and women who placed a higher value on and expectation for independence and a lower value on and expectation for academic achievement, who were more socially critical, more tolerant of deviance and less religious experienced intercourse earlier than their peers.
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From page 31... ...
Other researchers who have found high educational expectations to be associated with a lower probability of initiating sexual intercourse early include Devaney and Hubley (1981}, Hogan and Ritagawa, (1985) , and Furstenberg (19767.
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From page 32... ...
Billy (1984} hypothesized two mechanisms whereby community level factors affect adolescent sexual involvement: through a normative structure defining boundaries of permissable sexual behavior and 2) through an opportunity structure which is restrictive or permissive of sexual activity.
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From page 33... ...
of several European nations suggests that teenagers are capable of using contraception adequately, given appropriate instruction and support for its use. Sexual intercourse is a normal adult activity.
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From page 34... ...
These results certainly make intuitive sense and fit with data that show black males winch the highest and all females with the lowest proportion sexually experienced. This approach has not yet been tested for its predictive power, however.
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From page 35... ...
However, among those whose mother was employed, those who were left in their own supervision while their mother worked were more likely to be sexually experienced than those who were supervised by someone else. Thin analysis is based on a =mall number of cases, however; similar results were not found for black females or for males.
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