Department of Economics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA.
Stud Fam Plann. 2013 Jun;44(2):147-67. doi: 10.1111/j.1728-4465.2013.00350.x.
This study examines the influence of exposure to older within-grade peers on sexual behavior among students in urban South Africa. Data are drawn from the Cape Area Panel Study, a longitudinal survey of young people conducted in metropolitan Cape Town from 2002 to 2006. The combination of early sexual debut, high rates of school enrollment into the late teens, and grade repetition create an environment in which young people who progress through school ahead of many in their cohort interact with classmates who may be several years older. We construct a measure of cumulative exposure to classmates who are at least two years older and show that such exposure is statistically significantly associated with early sexual initiation among adolescent girls. This exposure also increases the age difference between these girls and their first sexual partner, and helps explain a significant proportion of the earlier sexual debut of African girls, compared with colored and white girls in Cape Town.
本研究考察了在南非城市中，与同年级年龄较大的学生接触对学生性行为的影响。数据来自于开普敦地区面板研究，这是一项在 2002 年至 2006 年期间对开普敦大都市青年进行的纵向调查。早期性行为的开始、较高的十几岁后期入学率以及年级留级的结合，创造了一种环境，使那些在同龄人中提前完成学业的年轻人与可能年长几岁的同学互动。我们构建了一个衡量与至少大两岁的同学累积接触的指标，并表明这种接触与青春期女孩的早期性开始有统计学上的显著关联。这种接触还增加了这些女孩与她们的第一个性伴侣之间的年龄差距，并有助于解释与开普敦的有色人种和白人女孩相比，非洲女孩更早开始性行为的一个重要原因。
