Parental Divorce during Childhood: Age at First Intercourse, Partnership and Parenthood

It is well established that young people whose parents divorced or experienced marital breakdown during their childhood are likely to enter into first partnerships and into parenthood earlier than those whose parents remained married. In this paper, using data from the British National Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles Survey, we examine how far the timing of first coitus plays a role in the genesis of this demographic behaviour for children of divorced parents. Other factors, including the timing of menarche, attitudes to sexual activity, degree of parental strictness and religiosity, were also examined. In general, these factors had little explanatory power. The analysis showed that earlier sexual activity for men and women from disrupted families is an important proximate determinant of their earlier entry into partnership and parenthood, compared with those brought up with both natural parents.