Table 3.
Bivariate association between early sexual debut and selected individual compositional and community contextual characteristics of ever or currently married Nigerian women, 2003*
| Early sexual debut | |||
| No [%(n)] | Yes [%(n)] | p-value | |
| Individual characteristics | |||
| Age (completed years) | .001 | ||
| 15 – 24 | 46.6 (640) | 53.4 (735) | |
| 25 – 34 | 56.0 (1159) | 44.0 (910) | |
| 35+ | 50.6 (1057) | 49.4 (1030) | |
| Education | .001 | ||
| No education | 35.3 (1013) | 64.7 (1856) | |
| Primary | 57.1 (724) | 42.9 (543) | |
| Secondary or higher | 80.2 (1119) | 19.8 (276) | |
| Ethnicity | .001 | ||
| Hausa/Fulani | 29.2 (606) | 70.8 (1467) | |
| Igbo | 76.7 (578) | 23.3 (176) | |
| Yoruba | 85.5 (541) | 14.5 (92) | |
| Others | 54.7 (1122) | 45.3 (930) | |
| Religion | .001 | ||
| Christian | 69.9 (1593) | 38.1 (686) | |
| Islam | 38.4 (1202) | 61.6 (1932) | |
| Others | 52.6 (60) | 47.4 (54) | |
| Community characteristics | .001 | ||
| Type of residence | |||
| Urban | 60.7 (1247) | 39.3 (807) | |
| Rural | 46.3 (1609) | 53.7 (1868) | |
| Community ethnic diversity†, Mean (SD) | 3.5 (2.6) | 3.9 (2.5) | .001 |
| Community median age of marriage, Mean (SD) | 17.5 (2.5) | 15.4 (1.9) | .001 |
| Community median spousal age gap, Mean (SD) | 9.3 (2.3) | 10.2 (1.8) | .001 |
| Geopolitical region | .001 | ||
| North-central | 60.4 (553) | 39.6 (363) | |
| North-east | 38.1 (523) | 61.9 (750) | |
| North-west | 32.0 (523) | 67.8 (1101) | |
| South-east | 78.5 (442) | 21.5 (121) | |
| South-south | 58.8 (314) | 41.2 (220) | |
| South-west | 82.4 (562) | 17.6 (120) | |
Chi-squared test was used for categorical data, and Mann-Whitney test continuous data for the bivariate analysis. For continuous variables, results are shown as mean and standard deviation.
†Number of ethnic group in a community, represents the likelihood that two persons, chosen at random from the same area, belong to different ethnic group
Data source – 2003 Nigeria Demographic and Survey. Sample size – 5531