Socialization and Selection in the Link between Friends' Religiosity and the Transition to Sexual Intercourse

Although much research has examined how friends influence teens' sexual behaviors, little attention has been given to the association between friends' religiosity and coital debut. This study looks at the processes that could produce this association, examining whether friends' religiosity influences the transition to sexual intercourse and whether teens sort into friendship groups on the basis of consistency between their virginity status and their friends' religious attitudes. Using two waves of data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, this paper finds that friends' religiosity influences respondents' coital debut even after accounting for the proportion of friends who have had sex. Likewise, teens who delay their coital debut tend to switch to more religious friends, while teens who have had their coital debut tend to switch to less religious friends. These findings add to a growing body of research on the relationship between religious contextual effects and individual behavior.