Patient Teenagers: Virginity Pledges as a Marker for Lower Sexual Activity

• Activity Number: 29
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Sunday, August 3, 2008 : 2:00 PM to 3:50 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Health Policy Statistics
• Author(s): Janet Rosenbaum*+
• Companies: University of Illinois at Chicago
• Keywords: public health ; abstinence ; adolescent health ; matched sampling ; propensity scores ; sexual behavior

Abstract

The US spends $200 million annually on abstinence programs, including virginity pledges. Using data from Add Health waves 1--3, adolescents reporting a wave 2 virginity pledge (n=289) were matched with nonpledgers (n=645) using exact and nearest-neighbor matching on wave 1 factors including pre-pledge religiosity, attitudes towards sex and birth control, and family context. Wave 3 outcomes were compared. Five years post-pledge, 84% of pledgers reported having never taken a pledge; pledgers and matched nonpledgers did not differ in premarital sex and sexually transmitted diseases. Pledgers had 0.1 fewer past year partners, but the same number of lifetime sexual partners and same age of first sex. Pledgers were 10 percentage points less likely than matched nonpledgers to use condoms in the last year, and less likely to use birth control in the past year and at last sex.