The heirs of sexual revolution

Marcantonio Caltabiano, Università di Padova
Francesco C. Billari, Università Bocconi
Gianpiero Dalla Zuanna, University of Padua

Many authors have described characteristics and timing of sexual revolution in Western world during the second half of the 20th century (see, e.g., Bozon and Kontula, 1998 and Bozon, 2003). However, so far the landscape is not complete, as data for many countries are lacking, and comparison is limited to cohorts born until the middle of the Seventies. In this paper – dealing with different data sources – we compare age at first sexual intercourse of men and women living in 40 developed countries, including the most of East Europe, overseas English speaking countries and Japan. Moreover, using a just published survey of WHO and some recent data on US young people, for 28 countries it is possible to consider the first phases of sexual life of people born in 1982-87 (the heirs of sexual revolution).