6.4: Adolescent Sexual Activity

By about age ten or eleven, most children experience increased sexual attraction to others that affects social life, both in school and out (McClintock & Herdt, 1996). By the end of high school, more than half of boys and girls report having experienced sexual intercourse at least once, though it is hard to be certain of the proportion because of the sensitivity and privacy of the information. (Center for Disease Control, 2004; Rosenbaum, 2006).

Data from the Centers for Disease Control (2021) showed that the percentage of high school students who reported "ever having had sex" fell from 38% in 2019 (and 47% in 2011) to 30% in 2021. In addition, there were other encouraging statistics showing that since 2011, the percent of high school students reporting that they have had four or more lifetime sexual partners has declined from 15% to 6% in 2021. In that same time, those reporting they were currently sexually active fell by 13% from 34 to 21 percent. Unfortunately, there were some statistics that seemed to be going in the wrong direction in that same time frame - the percent of those reporting using a condom during their last sexual intercourse fell from 60 to 54 percent, tested for HIV from 13 to 6, and only 5% of respondents had been tested for any STDs in the past year.

In terms of ethnicity, Black students reported the greatest percent decline during this time period from 60% in 2011 to 34% in 2021, and a drop in lifetime partners from 25 to 8 percent.

Centers for Disease Control data in the US from 2019 showed that percent of adolescents reporting that they had had intercourse before age 13 years declined from 10.2 in 1991 to 3 percent in 2019. International data from 69 low income countries showed that among younger adolescents 12-15 years old, 6.9% reported ever having had sex and of those, 52% reported having had two or more sexual partners ever, and 58.1% reported using condoms (Jing et al, 2023).

Adolescent Pregnancy:

As can be seen in Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\), in 2018 females aged 15-19 years experienced a birth rate (live births) of 17.4 per 1,000 women. The birth rate for teenagers has declined by 58% since 2007 and 72% since 1991, the most recent peak (Hamilton, Joyce, Martin, & Osterman, 2019). It appears that adolescents seem to be less sexually active than in previous years, and those who are sexually active seem to be using birth control (CDC, 2016).

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\). Number of live births and birth rates for U.S. females aged 15–19, for years 1991–2018. Source.

Currently this rate has been dropping even further - at latest count in 2021, the rate of teen pregnancies in the US is at 15.4 per 1000 females aged 15-19 years old according to the Health and Human Services department data. While the data show encouraging drops in teen pregnancy, particularly steep declines among Latine and Black teens, overall the US has higher rates of teen pregnancy as compared to other Western European, Canadian and Australian data (World Bank Group, 2022).

Risk Factors for Adolescent Pregnancy:

Miller et al. (2001) found that parent/child closeness, parental supervision, and parents' values against teen intercourse (or unprotected intercourse) decreased the risk of adolescent pregnancy. In contrast, residing in disorganized/dangerous neighborhoods, living in a lower SES family, living with a single parent, having older sexually active siblings or pregnant/parenting teenage sisters, early puberty, and being a victim of sexual abuse place adolescents at an increased risk of adolescent pregnancy.

Consequences of Adolescent Pregnancy:

After the child is born, life can be difficult for a teenage mother. Only 40% of teenagers who have children before age 18 graduate from high school. Without a high school degree her job prospects are limited, and economic independence is difficult. Teen mothers are more likely to live in poverty, and more than 75% of all unmarried teen mother receive public assistance within 5 years of the birth of their first child. Approximately, 64% of children born to an unmarried teenage high-school dropout live in poverty. Further, a child born to a teenage mother is 50% more likely to repeat a grade in school and is more likely to perform poorly on standardized tests and drop out before finishing high school (March of Dimes, 2012).

Research analyzing the age that men father their first child and how far they complete their education have been summarized by the Pew Research Center (2015) and reflect the research for females. Among dads ages 22 to 44, 70% of those with less than a high school diploma say they fathered their first child before the age of 25. In comparison, less than half (45%) of fathers with some college experience became dads by that age. Additionally, becoming a young father occurs much less for those with a bachelor's degree or higher as just 14% had their first child prior to age 25. Like men, women with more education are likely to be older when they become mothers.