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Title: Adolescent Sexual Initiation: Comparing Across a Decade
Resulting in 1 citation.
1. Kowaleski-Jones, Lori
Mott, Frank L.
Adolescent Sexual Initiation: Comparing Across a Decade
Presented: New York NY, American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, August 2007
Cohort(s): NLSY79, NLSY79 Young Adult
Publisher: American Sociological Association
Keyword(s): Adolescent Sexual Activity; Age at First Birth; Age at First Intercourse; Attitudes; Childbearing, Adolescent; Contraception; Depression (see also CESD); Deviance; Gender Differences; Intergenerational Patterns/Transmission; Mothers, Behavior; Pearlin Mastery Scale; Peers/Peer influence/Peer relations; Risk-Taking; Runaways; Self-Esteem; Sexual Activity

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

In this research, we compare adolescents from 1994 and 2004 to investigate the extent to which early sexual activity, and early parenthood may be linked with a range of proximate attitudes and behavior. Our particular focus is on exploring whether or not there are distinctive differences in these associations across gender and period. The data we use are from the 1979-2002 waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) and the linked 2004 Young Adult data file. Our sample includes 860 youth between the ages of 14 and 18 in 1994 and 1934 youth between the same ages in 2004.

Using a partial correlation approach, we explore differences in the correlates of sexual activity initiation and early parenthood between 1994 and 2004. We find that youth who are inclined towards risk taking are more likely to be sexually active. Additionally, there is fairly systematic evidence that for girls only, early sex and having a child are in various ways linked with depression, having low self-esteem, and having little sense of control over their lives. The results for young men are less consistent, in several instances suggesting substantially different motivations for sexual activity between the genders.

Bibliography Citation
Kowaleski-Jones, Lori and Frank L. Mott. "Adolescent Sexual Initiation: Comparing Across a Decade." Presented: New York NY, American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, August 2007.