Sexual Behavior in America's Children

Data from this year's "America's Children in Brief: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, 2008" from the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics.

In the "Behavior" section of the America's Children report:

• Early sexual activity is associated with emotional [1][2] and physical health risks. (See also our post on the benefits of delaying sexual debut. Share the research studies with your kids and talk to them about the findings. What do your kids think about the study results?)



• The percentage of students in grades 9–12 who reported ever having had sexual intercourse declined from 54 percent in 1991 to 46 percent in 2001 and remained stable from 2001 to 2005. (In your opinion, does this decline and stability argue that abstinence education works or does not work?)



• In 2005, 18 percent of students in grades 9–12 who had sexual intercourse in the past 3 months reported that they or their partner had used birth control pills before their last sexual intercourse and 63 percent reported condom use. While there was no statistically significant change in the use of birth control pills, condom use among high school students has increased from 1991 (from 46 percent to 63 percent). (In your opinion, if abstinence education is a failure, why are more teens using condoms now?)

[1] Hallfors, D., Waller, M., Bauer, D., Ford C., and Halpern, C. (2005). Which comes first in adolescence—sex and drugs or depression? American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 29(3), 163–170.
[2] Meier, A.M. (2007). Adolescent first sex and subsequent mental health. American Journal of Sociology 112(6): 1811–47.