Research Paper for Sociology
Sales Office East-West Center 1601 East-West Road Honolulu, Hawaii 96848-1601 Telephone: 808-944-7145 Facsimile: 808-944-7376 Email: ewcbooks@EastWestCenter. Org Website: www. Easterner’s. Org EAST-WEST CENTER WORKING PAPERS Population Series No. 108-14, November 2001 Sex and Marriage: How Closely are they Related in the Philippines, Taiwan, and Thailand Ninja Kim Choc, Huh-Sheen L in, Chaw Podiatrist, and Carbon Raymond Ninja Kim Choc is a Senior Fellow with the East-West Center’s Research Program, Population and Health Studies, Honolulu, Hawaii.
Huh-Sheen Line is the Deputy Director, Taiwan National Institute of Family Planning, Teaching Taiwan. Chaw Podiatrist is with the Institute for Population and Social Research, Manhood University, Thailand. Carbon M. Raymond is with the Population Institute, University of the Philippines. East-West Center Working Papers: Population Series are an unrelieved and unedited prepublication series reporting on research in progress. Please direct orders and requests to the East-West Center’s Publication Sales Office. The price for Working Papers is $3. 00 each plus postage. For surface mail, add $3. 0 for the first title plus $0. 75 for each additional title or copy sent in the same shipment. For airmail thin the U. S. And its territories, add $4. 00 for the first title plus $0. 75 for each additional title or copy in the same shipment. For airmail elsewhere, add $7. 00 for the first title plus $4. 00 for each additional title or copy in the same shipment. Readers in developing countries may request single copies on a complimentary basis. For more than 30 years, the East-West Center has been a world leader in research and education on population issues in the Asia- Pacific region.
More recently, the Center has expanded its activities to examine important health issues facing Asia and the Pacific. The Center inducts basic and applied research, offers professional education and training, and facilitates the exchange of information between policymakers and scholars on critical issues facing the region. ARRAY Asian Young Adult Reproductive Risk Project This research is a product of the East-West Centers Asian Young Adult Reproductive Risk (ARRAY) project, supported by SAID through its MEASURE Evaluation Project.
The ARRAY project supports a research network devoted to producing an Asian regional perspective on young adult risk behaviors through secondary and cross-national comparative investigation of large- call, household-based surveys of youth. The project presently involves investigators and national surveys in six Asian countries. The government of Hong Kong (now the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region) has supported area-wide youth surveys, both household-based and in-school, in 1981, 1 986, 1991, and 1996.
The 1 994 Philippines’ Young Adult Fertility and Sexuality Survey (YAPS-II) was conducted by the Population Institute, University of the Philippines, with support from the UNAPT. Thailand 1994 Family and Youth Survey (PAYS) was carried out by the Institute for Population and Social Research at Manhood University, with support from the UNAPT. In Indonesia, the 1998 Reproduces Remark Shatter (IRS) baseline survey was funded by the World Bank and by SAID through Pathfinder Internationally FOCUS on Young Adults program.
The IRS was carried out by the Lumbago Demurrage at the University of Indonesia under the supervision of the National Family Planning Coordinating Board (BIKE). The Nepal Adolescent and Young Adult (NAY) project, which includes the 2000 NAY youth survey, is being carried out by Family Health International and the Valley Research Group (Vary) with purport from SAID to Family Health International (FRI.). The Taiwan Young Person Survey (TYPE) of 1994 was carried out by the Taiwan Provincial Institute of Family Planning (now the Bureau for Health Promotion, Department Of Health, Taiwan) with support from the government Of Taiwan.
Abstract using large-scale national young adult reproductive health (YARD) surveys conducted in 1 994, this paper examines the sexual activities among young men and women aged 15-24 in the Philippines, Taiwan, and Thailand. We examine the extent of sexual activity and its association with marriage among the 15-24 year olds. We then analyze the factors associated with the probabilities of experiencing sexual initiation by types of first sexual partner classified as marital and non-marital. Among the three countries, sexual initiation begins earliest in Thailand and latest in Taiwan, both for men and women.
Sexual initiation that precedes marriage by a few years is very common among men. By age 24, 64% of Filipino men, 44% of Taiwanese men, and 78% of Thai men experience sex but only 26%, 9%, and 27% respectively get married. The age patterns of sexual initiation and marriage are similar among young women, except in Taiwan. Over 90 percent of the Filipino women and over 98% of Thai women aged 24 who have had sex are married but only about two-thirds of Taiwanese women aged 24 who have had sex are married.
In all three countries, men’s first sexual experiences were predominantly non-marital. Among the 15-24 year old men who ever had sex, 87% in the Philippines 92% in Taiwan, and 93% in Thailand had non- marital first sex. Among women aged 15-?24 who ever had sex, 30% had normality first sex in the Philippines and Thailand, but 70% of did in Taiwan. Two indicators of early transition to adulthood, leaving parental home at an early age and leaving school at an early age, increase the risk of having had non-marital first sex to a large extent among women.
Among men, the first one is associated with increased risks of non-marital first sex in Taiwan and Thailand, and the second one, only in Taiwan. Urban exposure increases the risk of having had non-marital first sex for both men and women with two exceptions. Among Thai men, it lowers the risk, and among Taiwanese men, it has no effect. Having some college education or planning to have college education lowers the probability of having non-marital first sex substantially mongo Filipino women and Thai women.
Among Taiwanese women, it increases the probability of having non-marital first sex. It has no effect on normality first sex among men. Separation of sex from marriage among women is not only more common in Taiwan, but is also more common among socially more advanced group of women within Taiwan. This finding suggests that separation of sex from marriage is likely to increase in other countries with further social modernization once the pattern initiates within the country. The prevalence of contraceptive use among sexually active single youth is surprisingly low in all three countries.
A new approach for educating young adults about reproductive health risks associated with unprotected non-marital sex and ways of reducing the risks need to be developed and implemented. Sex and Marriage: How Closely Are They Related in the Philippines, Taiwan, and Thailand? Ninja Kim Choc, Huh-Sheen Line, Chaw Podiatrist, and Carbon M. Introduction Recent social, economic, and demographic changes that took place in Asian countries have resulted in dramatic changes in the lives of young adults. Educational opportunities have increased greatly as well as employment opportunities for women.
These changes, in turn, resulted in delayed marriages and increases in the proportions of men and women who would never marry (Ferreira 1984; Guest and Tan 1994; Jones 1997; Line, Choc, and Tasty 1999; Line, Lee, and Thornton 1994; Tan 1993; Smith, Alexandra, and De Gunman 1 984; Xenon et al. 2001) In most Asian countries, sexual activities of men and women used to be limited to within marriage to a large extent. Sexual relationships between a single men and a single woman, if it happened at all, would quickly lead to marriage. Exceptions, however, have been practiced.
Some men had sexual relationships outside the marriage, costly with commercial sex workers. Increasing age at marriage, together with social changes that facilitate close relationships between single men and women, and exposure to non-traditional life-styles through globalizes mass media, are likely to have resulted in changes in the sexual behavior. Specifically, it is likely that, sexual activities among men and women that are not associated with marriage have increased. Previous studies indicate that such changes were occurring in the Philippines (Tan 1994) and Taiwan (Line and Line 1996; Thornton, Change and Line 1994).
Although national level studies o not exist, the prevalence of premarital sex among Thai male is believed to have increased (Sharkskin 2000). Understanding the relationship between marriage and sexual behavior is important both for theoretical and practical reasons. Close examination of marriage and sexual behavior among youth provide better understanding of the nature of family formation and relationships within family, and how these may be changing during the process of economic development and social changes. High levels of sexuality not associated with marriage carry serious implications for the reproductive lath risks.
Risks of unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections would rise unless proper protections are practiced regularly. It is important to learn about the extent of non-marital sexuality and assess what the health policies and programs can do to meet the needs of youth to protect themselves from increased reproductive health risks. This paper examines the sexual activities among young men and women in relation to marriage in the Philippines, Taiwan, and Thailand using large scale national young adult reproductive health (YARD) surveys conducted in 1994.
We en and women age 15-?24 in the three countries. We then analyze the factors associated with the probabilities of experiencing sexual initiation by types of first sexual partner. Implications on the needs of policies and programs to protect youth from increased reproductive health risks will be discussed. Data We use data from large-scale youth surveys in each of the three countries, all conducted in 1994. These surveys were designed and carried out independently from each other, but have some common characteristics.
All of them are based on youth residing in nationally representative samples of schooled in each country. All of these surveys include youth in their late teens and early ass and covered both men and women of all marital statuses. For the Philippines, we use data from the second Young Adult Fertility and Sexuality Survey (YAPS-II) conducted in 1994 by the University of Philippines Population Institute. The survey collected data from a national sample of 5,266 men and 5,612 women aged 1 5 to 24. See Raymond, Xenon, and Domingo (1999) for more details about the survey and the main findings.
For Taiwan, the 1994 Taiwan Young People Survey (TOYS) conducted by Taiwan National Institute for Family Planning is used. The survey collected data from 884 men and 2,766 women of ages 15-29, a probability sample of residents in the Taiwan area. Some more details of the survey are described in Choc and Line (2000). For Thailand, the Family and Youth Survey of 1994 is used. The survey collected data from a nationally representative sample of 1 ,087 men and 1 ,092 women age 15 to 24. The Institute for Population and Social Research, Manhood University, conducted the survey.
For more details about the survey and the main findings, see Podiatrist and Patricians (1995). All of the surveys collected information on transition to adulthood such as schooling, living arrangements, employment, and marriage, as well as further information on dating, cohabitation, sexual behavior, and marriage, together with family composition and characteristics. The surveys used interview method for most part of data collection. However, items relating to more sensitive issues such as dating and sexual relationships were filled out by respondents.
We examine two events, first sexual intercourse and first marriage. The three surveys used slightly different approaches for obtaining information on whether the respondent ever experienced sexual intercourse, the date of first sex, first sexual partner, and the date of first marriage. In YAPS-II of the Philippines, single respondents were asked three questions to see if they ever had sexual experiences. The respondents who reported having experienced a single date were asked “On the first single date, did you go all the way? ‘ and “How old were you on your single date? The respondents who reported having a boy/girl friend at the time of survey were asked “When you go out on dates, do (did) you go all the way? ‘ and “What was your date’s legislations with you at that time? ” Later in the survey, everyone was asked “Have you ever had sexual intercourse? ‘ ‘What was her(his) relationship with you then? ‘ and “At the time of your first sexual intercourse, how old were you? ” From these questions, we extract the information about whether the respondent ever had sex and whether the first sexual partner was the respondent’s fiance(e) or not.
Married respondents in YAPS-II were asked same questions about the first date and dates with current husband. In addition, they were asked “When you were still single, did you ever have sexual intercourse? ” The respondents who answered “yes” were then asked “Was that with your first husband/wife or with someone else? ” “In what month and year did you have your first sexual experience? ” “How old were you then? ” and ‘ “What was his/her relationship with you at that time? ” From these questions we determine the time of first sex and whether the first sexual partner was the first spouse or not.
