Abstract

        Is there any basis for the concern many parents have about their teen having sex? How is sexual involvement related to other behaviours, positive and negative? What are the childhood influences on teen sex? How are these behaviours affected by smoking marijuana and other high-risk behaviours? These are some of the questions addressed in this study.

        A detailed profile of those who have had and not had sex was produced to reveal the types of teens most and least likely to have had consensual sex, and their characteristics eight years earlier, including the qualities of their parents, families, neighbourhood and school. Analyses were also conducted of the assumed causes and consequences of having had sex.

        In 2003, 38% of boys and 42% of girls aged 14 to 19 reported that they had had sex (the sex rate). The rate was 12% for those aged 14 to 15, 30% for those 16 to 17, and 62% for those 18 to 19. The rate ranged from 33% in Ontario to 51% in Quebec and New Brunswick. The rate was 37% for children with married parents, 43% with single parents, 51% with cohabiting parents, and 58% with separated, divorced or widowed parents.

        The profiles reveal that teens having had sex are also more prone than others to such high-risk activities as smoking, drinking, intoxication, use of marijuana and other illicit drugs, selling drugs and attempted suicide. They are more likely to have friends who drink, smoke, or use drugs. They are more prone to get angry or upset easily.

        From a civic point of view these teens are more likely to have been questioned by the police, and to have committed acts of vandalism. From a family point of view they have more distant relationships with their mother and father. These results appear for both girls and boys. Their only "advantages" are a greater desire to do things for others, and liking their looks.

        Two models are employed to examine the assumed causes of sexual activity. In one model purely childhood factors are used. Having two biological parents rather than one, given the other factors, has a major influence on decreasing the likelihood of sexual activity. The parent's educational attainment also has a negative effect. Being either a religiously unaffiliated, Roman Catholic or liberal Protestant child in 1995, compared with the reference faith, conservative Christian, increases the likelihood of sex eight years later.

        The model of the effects of having had sex is applied to a wide range of other teen behaviours and attitudes, and includes the 1995 child worship frequency, and age, sex, marital status, education, and household income of the main parent. For both sexes, sexual activity is the strongest factor in this model when applied to many high-risk behaviours such as smoking, drinking, intoxication, and having close friends with high-risk behaviours.

        Childhood worship frequency depresses the likelihood of some high-risk behaviours, for boys more often than girls, but like the other childhood factors is relatively weak compared with the sexual activity factor.