Upchurch D M, Levy-Storms L, Sucoff C A, Aneshensel C S
University of California, Los Angeles, USA.
Fam Plann Perspect. 1998 May-Jun;30(3):121-7.
Whether the effect of gender on the risk of first intercourse in influenced by adolescents ethnicity has received limited attention in research on age at first sex. Such information could provide a more complete understanding of adolescent sexual behavior.
Life-table analysis using data from a population-based, ethnically diverse sample of 87/Los Angeles County youths was employed to estimate the median age at first sex for each gender-and-ethnicity group. Multivariate analysis using proportional hazards techniques was conducted to determine the relative risk of sexual activity among teenagers in each group.
Overall, the teenagers in the sample had a median age at first sex of 16.9 years. Black males had the lowest observed median (15.0), and Asian American males the highest (18.1); white and Hispanic males, and white and black females, reported similar ages (about 16.5 years). Hispanic and Asian American females had rates of first sex about half that of white females, although these protective effects were explained by differences in family structure. Even after controlling for background characteristics, black males had rates of first sex that were about 3-5 times the rates of the other gender-and-ethnicity groups. In addition, Asian American males were less likely than Hispanic males to be sexually experienced, and Hispanic males had almost twice the rates of sexual activity of Hispanic females.
Socioeconomic conditions account for ethnic differences among females in the age at first sex, and cultural influences may contribute to the difference between Hispanic males and females; explanations for black males, however, remain elusive.
在首次性行为年龄的研究中，性别对首次性行为风险的影响是否受青少年种族的影响，这一问题受到的关注有限。此类信息有助于更全面地理解青少年的性行为。
采用基于人群的、种族多样的87/洛杉矶县青少年样本数据进行生命表分析，以估计每个性别和种族组的首次性行为中位年龄。使用比例风险技术进行多变量分析，以确定每组青少年性行为的相对风险。
总体而言，样本中的青少年首次性行为中位年龄为16.9岁。黑人男性的观察到的中位年龄最低（15.0岁），亚裔美国男性最高（18.1岁）；白人和西班牙裔男性，以及白人和黑人女性，报告的年龄相似（约16.5岁）。西班牙裔和亚裔美国女性的首次性行为发生率约为白人女性的一半，尽管这些保护作用可以通过家庭结构的差异来解释。即使在控制了背景特征之后，黑人男性的首次性行为发生率仍约为其他性别和种族组的3至5倍。此外，亚裔美国男性比西班牙裔男性性经验少的可能性更小，西班牙裔男性的性行为发生率几乎是西班牙裔女性的两倍。
社会经济状况解释了女性在首次性行为年龄上的种族差异，文化影响可能导致西班牙裔男性和女性之间的差异；然而，黑人男性的情况仍难以解释。
