Table 1.
Characteristics of women according to status of their virginity, from National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Values are numbers (percentages) unless stated otherwise
| Characteristics | Virgins | Non-virgins | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No pregnancy | Pregnancy | No pregnancy | Pregnancy | ||
| Women | 146 (2.5) | 45 (0.5) | 2319 (30.7) | 5116 (63.8) | |
| Mean (SE) age at wave I | 14.9 (0.5) | 14.4 (0.4) | 14.4 (0.1) | 14.8 (0.1) | |
| Importance of religion at wave I***: | |||||
| Very important | 91 (49.0) | 24 (53.3) | 1017 (43.4) | 2330 (42.7) | |
| Somewhat important | 30 (19.5) | 11 (22.7) | 800 (33.5) | 1750 (35.5) | |
| Somewhat unimportant | 5 (2.6) | — (7.9) | 163 (7.7) | 257 (5.4) | |
| Very unimportant | 3 (8.4) | — (<0.1) | 69 (3.0) | 114 (2.4) | |
| Refused/don’t know | 17 (20.5) | 7 (16.2) | 270 (12.4) | 665 (14.0) | |
| Sex education offered in school: | |||||
| No | 25 (11.6) | 8 (21.4) | 321 (12.6) | 806 (16.2) | |
| Yes | 114 (84.6) | 35 (73.9) | 1869 (79.8) | 4089 (78.0) | |
| Missing | 7 (3.8) | 2 (4.6) | 129 (7.6) | 221 (5.8) | |
| Took pledge to remain virgin until married, wave I***: | |||||
| No | 100 (72.4) | 31 (66.4) | 1888 (82.5) | 4256 (83.7) | |
| Yes | 40 (21.2) | 12 (30.5) | 410 (16.4) | 801 (15.0) | |
| Missing/refused | 6 (6.4) | 2 (3.1) | 21 (1.1) | 59 (1.3) | |
| Respondent beliefs | |||||
| Knows how to use a condom correctly, wave I***: | |||||
| Strongly agree | 22 (14.3) | 10 (16.1) | 686 (29.1) | 2103 (41.3) | |
| Agree | 43 (15.9) | 19 (51.7) | 902 (37.6) | 1996 (38.3) | |
| Neither agree nor disagree | 26 (15.1) | 5 (8.2) | 313 (12.7) | 426 (8.5) | |
| Disagree | 22 (18.2) | 5 (16.0) | 228 (9.8) | 321 (5.9) | |
| Strongly disagree | 13 (5.7) | 3 (0.6) | 113 (5.1) | 145 (2.9) | |
| Don’t know/refused | 20 (30.8) | 3 (7.3) | 77 (5.8) | 125 (3.1) | |
| Knows how to use rhythm method of contraception, wave I***: | |||||
| Strongly agree | 13 (6.5) | 6 (14.4) | 329 (13.9) | 1007 (19.0) | |
| Agree | 38 (13.6) | 16 (39.6) | 760 (31.3) | 1927 (37.3) | |
| Neither agree nor disagree | 34 (19.2) | 7 (16.5) | 478 (20.0) | 938 (19.3) | |
| Disagree | 27 (17.7) | 10 (19.6) | 478 (20.6) | 788 (15.1) | |
| Strongly disagree | 14 (7.2) | 3 (2.5) | 163 (6.6) | 276 (5.1) | |
| Don’t know/refused | 20 (35.7) | 3 (7.3) | 111 (7.4) | 180 (4.2) | |
| Knows how to use withdrawal method of contraception, wave I***: | |||||
| Strongly agree | 14 (8.6) | 7 (12.3) | 356 (15.1) | 1077 (20.5) | |
| Agree | 29 (12.7) | 19 (43.1) | 869 (35.3) | 2271 (44.1) | |
| Neither agree nor disagree | 41 (23.3) | 9 (22.8) | 468 (20.2) | 843 (16.8) | |
| Disagree | 29 (14.1) | 5 (8.6) | 377 (16.1) | 583 (11.1) | |
| Strongly disagree | 11 (6.1) | — (6.0) | 125 (5.3) | 158 (3.2) | |
| Don’t know/refused | 22 (35.3) | — (7.3) | 124 (8.1) | 184 (4.3) | |
Percentages calculated using survey weights to allow population representative inference. Dash indicates cell size was too small to be displayed. Data from 244 “born again virgins” who reported sex in an early wave but later recanted are not shown.
***P<0.001 using analysis of variance for continuous variables and Fisher’s exact test for categorical variables.