Adolescent Sexual Development And Partnerships: Findings From A Representative Survey Of 15 To 17 Year Olds

This paper shows findings concerning the sexual and romantic development using representative data of 15 to 17 year old adolescents (N = 4.185) from the "Beziebungs- und Familienpanel" pairfam. Less than half of the adolescents are somehow sexually active, and only 34,4% experienced sexual intercourse. As expected the percentage of sexually experienced adolescents increases with age, while no gender differences were found. The estimated median for the age at first sexual intercourse is 17.1 years. In light of earlier findings these results do not support any trend to accelerated sexual development. The results concerning the prevalence of current relationships (25.6%) and the relationship duration (8.5 months on average) are comparable with findings from other surveys. Adolescents having a current romantic relationship report earlier sexual experiences. Students from lower track schools (Hauptschule) experience their first sexual intercourse earlier, students from higher track schools (Gymnasium) later. These results indicate that adolescents with lower education tackle developmental tasks earlier.