Trends in sexual activity among adolescent American women: 1982-1995

The formulation of policies and development of programs regarding adolescent sexual and reproductive health requires up-to-date information on levels of and trends in teenage sexual activity.

Analysis of three NSFG surveys, carried out in 1982, 1988 and 1995, allows examination of the sexual behavior of teenage women over a 13-year time period, using comparable data for the entire time period.

The proportion of adolescent women who ever had sexual intercourse increased somewhat during the 1980s, but this upward trend stabilized between the late 1980s and the mid-1990s. Throughout the period, there has been little change in the proportion currently sexually active: In each of the surveys, about 40% of all 15-19-year-olds had had sexual intercourse in the last three months. The average number of months in the past year in which sexually experienced teenagers had had intercourse declined during the 1980s, with no change in the continuity of sexual intercourse taking place between 1988 and 1995, when the mean remained at 8.6 months. Differences in teenage sexual behavior across poverty and racial and ethnic subgroups were large in the early 1980s, but narrowed over the 13-year period.

Only continued monitoring will tell whether the patterns observed during 1988-1995 signify a temporary leveling off in the trend toward increasing adolescent sexual activity, stability in behavior or the beginnings of a decline. Nevertheless, the sustained level of initiation of sexual activity during adolescence is by now a recognized pattern of behavior, and is an important characteristic of the transition to adulthood in the United States.