About 95% Of U.S. Residents Have Premarital Sex, Guttmacher Report Says

Main Category: Sexual Health / STDs
Also Included In: Women's Health / Gynecology
Article Date: 22 Dec 2006 - 3:00 PDT


About 95% of U.S. residents have premarital sex by age 44, according to a Guttmacher Institute report published Tuesday in the January/February issue of Public Health Reports, the AP/Chicago Tribune reports (Crary, AP/Chicago Tribune, 12/19). Lawrence Finer, director of domestic research at the Guttmacher Institute, and colleagues used statistics from the 1982, 1988, 1995 and 2002 CDC National Survey of Family Growth, which asked about 40,000 U.S. residents ages 15 to 44 about their sexual behavior (Jayson, USA Today, 12/20). About 33,000 of people who were surveyed were women. The study found that 99% of the respondents said they had sex by age 44 and 95% had done so before marriage. In addition, the study found that women were as likely as men to engage in premarital sex. According to Finer, at least 91% of women born between 1950 and 1978 said they had premarital sex by age 30, and 88% of women born in the 1940s said they had premarital sex prior to age 44 (AP/Chicago Tribune, 12/19). Finer said the margin of error in the report is less than one percentage point (USA Today, 12/20). "The data clearly show that the majority of older teens and adults have already had sex before marriage, which calls into question the federal government's funding of abstinence-only-until-marriage programs for 12- to 29-year-olds," Finer said, adding, "It would be more effective to provide young people with the skills and information they need to be safe once they become sexually active -- which nearly everyone eventually will." Wade Horn -- assistant secretary for children and families at HHS' Administration for Children and Families -- said, "One of [the agency's] values is to help young people delay the onset of sexual activity" because "[t]he longer one delays, the fewer lifetime sex partners they have and the less the risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases" (AP/Chicago Tribune, 12/19). Pat Fagan, a fellow at the Heritage Foundation, said the release of the study late in the year is "part of a major congressional battle about to start in January and February ... to get rid of abstinence funding." Finer said he had no control over when the study was published (USA Today, 12/20).

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