Family Configuration in Relation to the Sexual Behavior of Female Adolescents

Several recent studies have reported that aspects of family configuration including both sibling constellation and parents marital status are related to adolescent sexual intercourse experience. However these findings often have been based on relatively small community or regional samples and the analyses sometimes have not included adequate controls. The present study based on a national probability sample of 15-to-19-year-old women replicates only one of the earlier results. Teenage young women who have been raised by a single parent are more likely to have nonmarital sexual intercourse than young women from intact marriages. However this effect is diminished by controlling for age and race social class and religion. When all of these variables are entered first in a regression equation the effect of parents marital status on daughters sexual status is greatly reduced but remains marginally significant. Sibling constellation effects reported in some earlier studies are not evident in these data. (Authors)