Premarital Sexual Activity Among U.S. Teenage Women Over the Past Three Decades

Abstract

Estimates of the proportion of teenagers who had ever had premarital sexual intercourse were obtained in 1971 1976 and 1979 in 3 National Surveys of Young Women (NSYW) conducted by the same principal investigators. They show a substantial increase between 1971 and 1979 in the sexual activity of both black and white teenagers. Among 15-19 year old women living in metropolitan areas the % reporting premarital sexual activity rose from 30.4 in 1971 to 43.4 in 1976 and to 49.8 in 1979. The trend for blacks was slightly different. Levels of sexual activity apparently declined between 1979 and 1982. This article assesses the validity of recent trends by using a single survey to generate cross-sectional estimates for earlier years and estimates of national trends; to increase the length of the trend series; and to examine the trends by individual year of age. The survey used is the 1982 National Survey of Family Growth. The estimates span the experience of birth cohorts that reached adolescence in the 1950s and that of cohorts now in their teenage years. Among whites the proportion of sexually experienced teenagers increased during the 1970s and leveled off somewhat during the 1980s. Among blacks the level rose during the 1970s and then declined somewhat between 1979 and 1982. Changes in age composition do not explain increased levels during the 1970s. Black teenagers face higher risks of 1st intercourse at every age than do white teenagers. However among the more recent cohorts the racial differential is reduced. Among both whites and blacks teenagers continue to become sexually experienced at younger and younger ages and any decline observed in levels of sexual activity is limited to adolescents in the older age groups. Pregnancy prevention efforts targeted at the very youngest teenagers can have a potentially greater impact than those targeted at older teenagers.