Table 4.

Two-level hierarchical linear model of age at sexual debut among youth sexually active by Wave III (N = 6,768)^a

	Model 1		Model 2
	b	SE	b	SE
Intercept	17.634^***	.065	14.376^***	.252
Neighborhood characteristics
Type^b
Upper middle class white suburban (ref.)	—	—	—	—
Middle class Hispanic/Asian suburb	−.122	.111	−.237^**	.088
Working class white rural	−.401^***	.098	−.261^**	.076
Poor black urban	−.851^***	.165	−.423^**	.141
Poor black rural	−.758^***	.128	−.587^***	.103
Poor white urban	−.507^***	.138	−.229^*	.113
Working class mixed race urban	−.248	.136	−.317^**	.112
Poor Hispanic/immigrant urban	.228	.139	−.020	.118
Middle class black urban	−.557^***	.151	−.401^**	.125
Mixed class white urban	−.079	.192	−.244	.158
Permissive sexual climate^c	−.286^***	.048	−.183^***	.040
Demograpaics
Age			.559^***	.015
Female			−.030	.049
Two married biological parents			.321^***	.049
Family socioeconomic status			.051^***	.010
Individual characteristics
Depression			−.011	.063
Relative pubertal development			−.099^***	.021
Low self-control			−.155^***	.043
Attachment to school			.022	.029
College aspirations			.053^*	.025
Religiosity			.145^***	.022
Nonviolent delinquency			−.044	.054
Violent perpetration			−.274^***	.056
Family characteristics			−.274^***	.056
Family support			.114^*	.046
Parental attachment			.008	.054
Parental monitoring			−.217^**	.076
Peer characteristics
Unstructured socializing			−.095^***	.023
Random effects
Level 1 residual (SE) (95% CI)	4.403 (.079) (4.250–4.562)		3.427 (.061) (3.310–3.549)
Level 2 intercept (SE) (95% CI)	.159 (.037) (.100–.252)		.044 (.019) (.019–.104)
−2 Log likelihood	29,426.088		27,620.604

Source: National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent to Adult Health Wave I (1994–1995) and Wave III (2001–2002).

CI = confidence interval; ref = reference; SE = standard error.

All predictors measured at Wave I.

Model also controls for years lived in neighborhood.

Grand mean centered.

p < .05;

^**

p < .01;

^***

p < .001 (two-tailed tests).