Selinity
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These are statistics garnered from data collected by OCSLS (Online College Social Life Survey) from the year 2005--2010.
These statistics have shown that racial groups are virtually identical on whether and when they want to marry and have children.However, there are some group differences in attitudes about students having sex, and in their sexual behaviour.
Where we see differences, Asians, especially South Asians, appear the most conservative in attitudes and behavior, Latinx students are in the middle, and either Whites or Blacks are generally the most permissive, depending on the issue. In this blog post, we can’t fully answer the complicated questions of what causes these differences, but we offer some ideas, with some data to back them up.
Over 95% of both the East Asian and South Asian students in our study are either first- or second-generation immigrants – that is, either they were themselves born outside the U.S., or one or both of their parents were. We speculate that the relatively conservative attitudes and less active sexual behavior of Asians result from the influence of their immigrant parents from Asia. Fewer, but a still high 82%, of the Latinx students in our study are first- or second-generation immigrants, so this explanation may apply somewhat to them as well. By contrast, only 16% of Whites and 35% of Black students in the study are immigrants or had an immigrant parent. (See the technical appendix for more details on this.)
As for differences between Blacks and other racial groups, the patterns differ strongly by gender. As many race and gender scholars have argued, an intersectional approach is often needed when the way race affects men and women is very different. Let us start with men. Black men have had more sexual partners than White or other men. What explains this? Prior research has shown that youth of any race who grow up in poverty or with less educated parents are more likely to have first intercourse earlier and Blacks are especially likely to grow up disadvantaged. Consistent with this, past research on the age of sexual debut among US adolescents, has shown that Black youth have an earlier age at first intercourse than Whites, which is likely to lead to more sexual experience by the age of most of the college respondents. (The survey question asks about number of partners ever, not only during college, so having started during or before high school could lead to a higher lifetime number.)
The difference between White and Black men’s median partners is 1.9—with Black men having a median of 4.2 and White men 2.3 partners. To test how much of this is explained by Black men having had an earlier age at first intercourse, we re-estimated the regression analysis controlling for this factor and created adjusted medians assigning the age at first intercourse for the sample as a whole to all races of men. The new adjusted median number of partners is only .7 apart rather than 1.9 apart, implying that about two-thirds of the gap is explained by differences in age at first intercourse. Thus, the White-Black differences among men may reflect less about different behavior at college and more about the early effects of disadvantage leading to early first sex.
However, if the explanation we offered for Black men were just about socioeconomic disadvantage, we would expect to find it applicable to Black women too. Instead, we found that Black women students are significantly more likely to be virgins than White women, they have had about the same number of intercourse partners as White women, and they have had substantially fewer hookups than either White women or Latinas. Moreover, they are more likely to think premarital sex is wrong than any race-gender group other than South Asian women. Why are Black women more conservative than other racial groups on many indicators, while Black men are more liberal? We suggest two possible explanations. It may be in part because Black women are aware of stereotypes of Blacks as hypersexual, and, given the gendered double standard that shames women more than men for casual sex, black women may feel the responsibility to behave in a way that doesn’t reinforce racial stereotypes usually seen as pejorative. A second possible explanation for the fact that Black women are more likely to be virgins and have fewer hookups is that Black women may be less sought after as partners than women of other races, a race-gender-specific bias in the erotic hierarchy.
Where we see differences, Asians, especially South Asians, appear the most conservative in attitudes and behavior, Latinx students are in the middle, and either Whites or Blacks are generally the most permissive, depending on the issue. In this blog post, we can’t fully answer the complicated questions of what causes these differences, but we offer some ideas, with some data to back them up.
Over 95% of both the East Asian and South Asian students in our study are either first- or second-generation immigrants – that is, either they were themselves born outside the U.S., or one or both of their parents were. We speculate that the relatively conservative attitudes and less active sexual behavior of Asians result from the influence of their immigrant parents from Asia. Fewer, but a still high 82%, of the Latinx students in our study are first- or second-generation immigrants, so this explanation may apply somewhat to them as well. By contrast, only 16% of Whites and 35% of Black students in the study are immigrants or had an immigrant parent. (See the technical appendix for more details on this.)
As for differences between Blacks and other racial groups, the patterns differ strongly by gender. As many race and gender scholars have argued, an intersectional approach is often needed when the way race affects men and women is very different. Let us start with men. Black men have had more sexual partners than White or other men. What explains this? Prior research has shown that youth of any race who grow up in poverty or with less educated parents are more likely to have first intercourse earlier and Blacks are especially likely to grow up disadvantaged. Consistent with this, past research on the age of sexual debut among US adolescents, has shown that Black youth have an earlier age at first intercourse than Whites, which is likely to lead to more sexual experience by the age of most of the college respondents. (The survey question asks about number of partners ever, not only during college, so having started during or before high school could lead to a higher lifetime number.)
The difference between White and Black men’s median partners is 1.9—with Black men having a median of 4.2 and White men 2.3 partners. To test how much of this is explained by Black men having had an earlier age at first intercourse, we re-estimated the regression analysis controlling for this factor and created adjusted medians assigning the age at first intercourse for the sample as a whole to all races of men. The new adjusted median number of partners is only .7 apart rather than 1.9 apart, implying that about two-thirds of the gap is explained by differences in age at first intercourse. Thus, the White-Black differences among men may reflect less about different behavior at college and more about the early effects of disadvantage leading to early first sex.
However, if the explanation we offered for Black men were just about socioeconomic disadvantage, we would expect to find it applicable to Black women too. Instead, we found that Black women students are significantly more likely to be virgins than White women, they have had about the same number of intercourse partners as White women, and they have had substantially fewer hookups than either White women or Latinas. Moreover, they are more likely to think premarital sex is wrong than any race-gender group other than South Asian women. Why are Black women more conservative than other racial groups on many indicators, while Black men are more liberal? We suggest two possible explanations. It may be in part because Black women are aware of stereotypes of Blacks as hypersexual, and, given the gendered double standard that shames women more than men for casual sex, black women may feel the responsibility to behave in a way that doesn’t reinforce racial stereotypes usually seen as pejorative. A second possible explanation for the fact that Black women are more likely to be virgins and have fewer hookups is that Black women may be less sought after as partners than women of other races, a race-gender-specific bias in the erotic hierarchy.