Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 14, 2025

Breakfast Habits among Schoolchildren in the City of Uruguaiana, Brazil
Published on: July 29, 2020
Higher parental socioeconomic status accelerates sexual debut: Evidence from university students in Italy
Raffaele Guetto1, Daniele Vignoli1, Alessio Lachi1
1University of Florence, Department of Statistics, Computer Science, Applications, Viale Morgagni, 59, 50134 Florence, Italy.
Abstract:
In this paper we analyze how the timing and type (protected or unprotected) of sexual debut are influenced by parental socioeconomic status (SES). We argue that depending on whether a "parental control" or a "cultural openness" mechanism prevails, one could find a postponing or an anticipating effect of higher parental SES on children's timing of sexual debut. By applying event-history techniques to unique data from the two releases of the Sexual and Emotional Life of Youths survey (2000 and 2017), we found a clear accelerating effect of higher parental SES-parental education and father's social class-on the sexual debut of Italian university students. The effect is partly mediated by family characteristics related to the cultural openness mechanism, such as low parental religiosity, greater communication about sex, and parental permissiveness; on the contrary, we only found weak support for the parental control explanation. Higher parental education is associated with a higher likelihood of protected first sexual intercourse-and especially of condom use-even if more precocious. Our results dispute the North American- and Anglo-Saxon-driven finding that high-SES children postpone their sexual debut.
Related Concept Videos
Influence of Parents and Peers on Identity
Parental Influence on Identity Development
Parents serve as primary guides and managers in an adolescent's life, offering support instrumental in decision-making and personal growth....
Socioemotional Experience and Gender Development
Cross-Sectional Research
Relationship Formation
Self-Discrepancy Theory
Erikson's Theory on Socioemotional Development during Adolescence

