Age at first sexual intercourse in Italy: A geographical approach

Using data from the “Survey on Sexual Behaviour of Italian Students - USS”, we investigate the behavior of Italian students at first sexual intercourse, focusing in particular on geographical patterns and employing event-history models. For both genders we found significant spatial differentials. The geography of the girls’ attitude towards their first sexual intercourse does not seem to be affected by their social and cultural background; this does not hold for boys, however, for whom the geographical dynamics are explained by background characteristics. Finally, we present a comparison between the results found in the above data set and the “Fertility and Family Survey - FFS” and find striking similarities between the two ones.