Understanding Changes in Young Metropolitan Men's Sexual Activity: 1979-1995

256Family Planning PerspectivesARTICLESUnderstanding Changes in Sexual ActivityAmong Young Metropolitan Men: 1979–1995By Leighton Ku, Freya L. Sonenstein, Laura D. Lindberg, Carolyn H. Bradner, Scott Boggess and Joseph H. PleckContext: Changes in the sexual behavior of teenagers can have a significant impact on levels ofadolescent pregnancy and transmission of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Understand-ing the role played by attitudes and educational efforts will provide critical prevention information.Methods:Data on the sexual behavior, sexual attitudes, educational experiences and demo-graphics of 2,087 never-married metropolitan males aged 17–19 from the 1979 National Sur-vey of Young Men and the 1988 and 1995 waves of the National Survey of Adolescent Maleswere analyzed through multivariate methods to examine factors that predict sexual behavior aswell as those that predict sexual attitudes.Results:The percentage of males aged 17–19 who had ever had sex increased from 66% in1979 to 76% in 1988 and then decreased to 68% in 1995. The frequency of sexual intercoursein the year prior to the survey increased significantly over time, although the lifetime number ofsexual partners did not. Acceptance of premarital sex increased significantly from 1979 to 1988,then decreased significantly from 1988 to 1995. Over time, young men were increasingly likelyto prefer having and supporting a baby to marriage, abortion or adoption as the resolution to anonmarital pregnancy. Trends in attitudes were strongly associated with sexual behaviors, withmore conservative attitudes predicting less sexual activity. AIDS education, which was nearlyuniversal in 1995, was associated with decreased sexual activity, although not among black youths.Conclusions:More conservative sexual attitudes and increased exposure to AIDS educationare key predictors of decreased sexual activity among adolescent males. However, broader so-cietal factors, such as fear of AIDS and increased awareness of problems associated with teen-age pregnancy and STDs, may underlie both attitudinal and behavioral changes.Family Planning Perspectives, 1998, 30(6):256–262period of increasing (1979 to 1988) then de-creasing (1988 to 1995) sexual activity. Byexamining time periods with reversingtrends, we have a relatively strong frame-work within which to understand factorsrelated to both increased and decreasedsexual activity.MethodsSources of DataOur data come from three nationally rep-resentative household surveys of youngmen: the 1979 National Survey of YoungMen (NSYM)6and the 1988 and 1995waves of the National Survey of Adoles-cent Males (NSAM-88 and NSAM-95, re-spectively).7In addition, we also use somedata from a 1991 follow-up of the 1998 co-hort. Each survey involved a multistagenational probability sample of householdsin the coterminous United States, and eachincluded weights that adjusted for sam-pling, nonresponse and poststratificationto correspond with census targets. Eachsurvey involved both in-person interviewsand self-administered questionnaires andasked questions specifically concerningthe sexual and contraceptive behaviors ofadolescents; each included attitudinal andLeighton Ku is a senior research associate, Freya L. So-nenstein is director of the Population Studies Center,Laura D. Lindberg is a research associate, and CarolynH. Bradner is a research assistant, all at the Urban Insti-tute, Washington, DC. Scott Boggess is an assistant pro-fessor in the Department of Demography, GeorgetownUniversity, Washington, DC, and Joseph H. Pleck is a pro-fessor in the Division of Human Development and Fam-ily Studies, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL. The researchon which this article is based was funded by the CharlesStewart Mott Foundation. The National Survey of Ado-lescent Males was funded with the support of the NationalInstitute of Child Health and Human Development, withadditional support from the Office of Population Affairs,the National Institute of Mental Health and the Centersfor Disease Control and Prevention. Kristin Moore, JoyceAbma, John Santelli and Christine Bachrach offered help-ful comments. A preliminary version of this article waspresented at the annual meeting of the Population Asso-ciation of America, Chicago, IL, April 4, 1998.haviors such as these to be of consequenceto public policy and public health.What might account for these shifts insexual behavior? Changes in teenagers’behavior may be related to shifts in theirattitudes about sex and pregnancy, re-flecting changes in broader societal normsabout sexual behavior. Alternately, pub-lic concern about AIDS, STDs and ado-lescent pregnancy, which has resulted inheightened levels of education aroundthese issues, may have played a role in re-ducing sexual activity. It is often difficultto discern the true root causes of such so-cial phenomena, however.In this article, to examine how attitudesand educational experiences might influ-ence sexual behavior, we analyze