Primary Findings

Sexual experience

• Approximately one in five adolescents has had sexual intercourse before his or her 15th birthday.
  
• Boys age 14 and younger are slightly more likely to have had sex than girls the same age.
  
• Sexually experienced teens were more likely than virgins to engage in other risky behaviors, such as smoking, illegal drugs, and drinking once a week or more.
  

Pressure

• About one in ten girls who first have sex before age 15 describe it as non-voluntary. Many more describe it as relatively “unwanted.” That is, while the experience was voluntary on their part, they did not want to have sex when they did.
  
• Younger teen girls who are sexually experienced are more likely than older teens to say they “wish they’d waited.”
  

Frequency of sex

• Sex is often sporadic among young adolescents. For example, approximately half of sexually experienced 14-year-olds have had sex 0-2 times in the past 12 months.
  

Number of partners

• Of women under the age of twenty, those who first had sex at age 14 or younger, had more sexual partners, on average, than girls who first had sex at age 15 or older, increasing their risk of STDs and pregnancy.

• While an exact number is not available, this report shows that between half and three-quarters of youth age 12-14 report that they used contraception the first time they had sex.
  
• Slightly more than half of girls age 12-14 and about two thirds of boys say they used some form of contraception the most recent time they had sex.
  

Pregnancy

• Approximately one in seven sexually experienced 14-year-old girls reports having been pregnant.
  
• That translates into about 20,000 pregnancies each year and 8,000 births. (For those 15 to 19, the numbers are about 850,000 pregnancies and 450,000 births)
  
• Data released May 7, 2003 by the Alan Guttmacher Institute shows that between 1990 and 1999, teen pregnancy rates declined 27% for those aged 15-19. For those 14 and under, the teen pregnancy rate declined 40% (from a peak in 1990 of 17.5 per 1,000 girls to 10.5 in 1999).
  

Dating

• About half of those age 12-14 report having been on a date or having a romantic relationship in the past 18 months.
  
• Among those youth 14 and younger reporting a romantic relationship, about a quarter are with someone two or more years older — girls far more than boys.
  
• Relationships between a young adolescent (age 12-14) and a partner who is older by two, three or more years — compared with those with someone only slightly older, the same age, or younger — are much more likely to include sexual intercourse.
  
• For example, 13% of same-age relationships among those aged 12-14 include sexual intercourse. If the partner is two years older, 26% of the relationships include sex. If the partner is three or more years older, 33% of the relationships include sex.
  

Opportunity

• One of the small data sets examined in the report indicates that one-third of 12-year-olds and about half of 14-year-olds have been at a party without any adults in the house.

Parents

• Parents are usually unaware that their young children have had sex. Only about one-third of parents of sexually experienced 14-year-olds believe that their child has had sex.
  
• As a general matter, parents say that they talk to their children “a moderate amount” about sex. They were most likely to say they have spoken to their children about STDs and least likely to have discussed the social consequences of sex.
  
• Like other reports, parents and youth disagree about whether conversations about sex had actually taken place and who had initiated the conversation.

Other risky behaviors

• The report also indicates that sexually experienced teens were more likely than virgins to engage in other risky behaviors, such as smoking, illegal drugs, and drinking once a week or more.
  
• For example, 43% of sexually experienced teens said they had tried marijuana, compared with 10% of virgins.
  

Report Implications

Adults need to know that — for many young people — sex doesn’t always wait.

• Clearly, some very young teens are having sex.
  Consequently, parents, program leaders, school officials, community leaders and others need to recognize that sex and dating are important issues for middle school age youth that cannot be ignored.
  

There is reason to be concerned about early sexual activity.

• Youth who have sex at early age seem to be different than those who do not in important ways. For example, for girls sex is more likely to be unwanted. Over time, those girls that first have sex at an early age are more likely to have more sexual partners, are at an increased risk of pregnancy, contracting an STD, and dropping out of school.
  
• Boys and girls who have sex at an early age are more likely than their peers who haven’t had sex to use illegal drugs and alcohol and engage in other delinquent behavior.
  
• While early sex may not cause these outcomes, it does appear to be an early and important warning sign of risk.
  

Parents should be concerned about young teenagers dating, particularly dating someone much older.

• Because young teens who are dating — particularly those young people dating someone at least two years older — are more likely to be involved in sexual relationships than young teens who date someone the same age or slightly older, parents should discourage early, one-on-one dating, particularly with someone significantly older.
  

Parents should know where their children are, what they are doing, and with whom.

• Young teens seem to have opportunities to have sex. One data set in the report indicates that one-third of 12-year-olds and about half of 14-year-olds have been at a party without any adults in the house.

Parents should communicate more with their young adolescents about sex, love, and relationships.

• This report, like others, suggests that some parents are not talking to their children about these issues at all.
  
• And while many parents report having had such conversations, far fewer young people say that such conversations have actually occurred.

Teaching middle school youth about how to resist and manage sexual pressure is appropriate.

• Many teens can get into situations where they feel pressure to have sex and, because of their young age, may not be able to handle these situations effectively.

Efforts to prevent teen pregnancy should include young adolescents.

• The data in the report clearly suggest that addressing sex and its consequences — as well as the benefits and limitations of contraception — cannot be put off until high school.

We still have much to learn.

• While this report sheds light on the sexual behavior of young adolescents, it also makes clear there is still much we don’t know.
  
• This is due, in part, become some worry that asking sexual questions of young people “legitimizes” sex, or increases teens’ interest in engaging in sex. These sensitivities need to be discussed and resolved openly and respectfully, otherwise we will all be limited in our ability to provide sound guidance and advice.

A Note About This Report
The seven-chapter report — 14 and Younger: The Sexual Behavior of Young Adolescents — is the work of seven teams of investigators examining three nationally-representative data sets and three smaller data sets. The finding are based on data collected, primarily, from the mid and late 1990s, the most recent nationally-representative data available.