Abstract
ObjectivesThis study explored sexual knowledge, attitudes and practices of female only-child undergraduates and made a comparison with students with siblings.MethodsAnonymously completed questionnaires were received from 4,769 female undergraduates, recruited using randomized cluster sampling by type of university and students' major and grade. Multivariate logistic regression was used to assess the effects of only-child on sexual knowledge, attitudes and practices among female undergraduates.ResultsOf 4,769 female undergraduate students, 41.0% were only-child and 59.0% were students with siblings. Compared with students with siblings, only-child students scored higher on sex-related knowledge, were more inclined to agree with premarital sex, multiple sex partners, one-night stands, extramarital lovers and homosexuality, and were more likely to have a boyfriend and experience sexual intercourse (73.6% vs. 61.4%; 24.0% vs. 14.0%). Only-children were less likely to experience coercion at first sex and have first sexual intercourse with men not their “boyfriends” than children with siblings (3.3% vs. 6.4%; 20.7% vs. 28.8%). There were no significant differences on other risky sexual behaviors (e.g. multiple sex partners and inconsistent condom use) between the only-child students and students with siblings.ConclusionsSexual knowledge, attitudes and some practices of only-child female undergraduates were different from students with siblings. Intervention should be designed according to different requirements of only-children and non-only-children.
Highlights
To ease the enormous pressure of population explosion, the Chinese government started promoting and implementing ‘‘one couple one child’’ family planning policy nationwide in 1979 [1]
Only-child were more inclined to agree with premarital sex, multiple sex partners, one night stand, extramarital lover and homosexuality than children with siblings. 73.6% of only-child reported having a boyfriend, higher than children with siblings (61.4%), and 24.0% of onlychild had sexual intercourse, while the figure was 14.0% among students with siblings
Our findings showed similar characteristics, 68.1% of the onlychild female students were from capital cities, only 2% of the onlychild were from rural areas, and non-only-child from rural areas were up to 28.3%
Summary
To ease the enormous pressure of population explosion, the Chinese government started promoting and implementing ‘‘one couple one child’’ family planning policy nationwide in 1979 [1]. The implementation of the one-child policy lasted more than thirty years; the controlling effect of the population growth is significant [2]. It significantly affects the size and composition of the family today. Data showed that the form of the traditional extended family (three generations living under one roof) in 1982 accounted for 24.3% of urban households in China, and by 1994, this proportion dropped to 18.0%; family model of three members showed an increasing trend in the Chinese family structure [3], especially in one-child families, the proportion of a family of three was up to 80% [4]. The diversity of the roles of the parents make close parent-child relationship form, which directly affect the child’s psychological characteristics of personality and social behavior orientation; it is generally believed that the family environment inevitably make the only-child groups different from those children with siblings [4,5]
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