In the US, the portion of young men between the ages of 18 to 34 who report having at least one partner has fallen substantially in recent years (sorry for the small image size):
Charts similar to the one above have prompted talk of a sex recession. Yet worries that Millennials are killing sex (as well as napkins, diamonds, and casual dining) may be premature. This data comes from the GSS, which samples a few hundred people between the ages of 18 and 34. The 95 percent confidence intervals around these estimates, shown by the whisker bars on the chart, are very large. For example, the margin of error on the 2018 estimate for men (77.5% with at least one partner) is 7.5 percentage points.
In my submission to the annual Macleans Charts to Watch compilation here I compare the GSS numbers to those obtained from the much larger Canadian Community Health Survey. I find a smaller, but similar, downwards trend in young men's sexual activity rates north of the border. With the larger sample, I could pinpoint the downturn more precisely: it is concentrated among 20 to 24 year olds.
It does seem that these numbers are picking up something real. The question is, what?
Recent Comments