JOURNAL OF SEX RESEARCH, 50(6), 560–573, 2013

Copyright # The Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality

ISSN: 0022-4499 print=1559-8519 online
DOI: 10.1080/00224499.2012.668976

Acculturation, Gender Disparity, and the Sexual Behavior

of Asian American Youth
Yuying Tong
Department of Sociology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Asian American youth are less likely to be sexually active than adolescents from other ethnic
groups; however, with acculturation, they may adopt the more liberal sexual norms of
American society. Moreover, owing to differing parental expectations for sons and daughters
about sexuality, gender disparity might exist in the adoption of American sexual norms. This
article used the proportional hazards model and the generalized estimating equations Poisson
model to examine how acculturation influences the initiation of sexual intercourse and the
number of sexual partners. The results show that acculturation leads to more liberal sexual
mores among Asian American youth. However, despite what might be expected from the
sexual double standard, the models show that more acculturated females, as indicated by their
use of English at home, had an earlier onset of sexual intercourse and a higher number of
sexual partners. This is the opposite of what would be predicted by the sexual double standard
theory. This might be due to the fact that Asian females tend to be more socially accepted by
the host society than Asian males. Information on partners shows that Asian American
females have more diversified racial backgrounds than their male counterparts. They are also
more likely to have older sexual partners.

Most American adolescents report that they have had
sex by the time they graduate from high school (Singh
& Darroch, 1999). Early initiation of sexual intercourse
and multiple sexual partners are risk factors for teenage
pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases (Abma &
Sonenstein, 2002; Kahn, 2002). Young people who are
sexually active often lack sufficient knowledge of repro-
ductive health such as contraceptive use and prevention
of sexually transmitted diseases. In addition, there are
some psychologically negative consequences such as
feelings of exploitation, dissatisfaction, and guilt asso-
ciated with earlier sex behaviors that are not easily
quantified (Kirby et al., 1994). Thus, adolescent sexual
This research used data from the National Longitudinal Study of
Adolescent Health (Add Health), a program project directed by
Kathleen Mullan Harris and designed by J. Richard Udry, Peter S.
Bearman, and Kathleen Mullan Harris at the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill, and was funded by Grant P01-HD31921 from
the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and
Human Development, with cooperative funding from 23 other federal
agencies and foundations. Special acknowledgment is due Ronald R.
Rindfuss and Barbara Entwisle for assistance in the original design.
Information on how to obtain the Add Health data files is available
on the Add Health Web site: http://www.cpc.unc.edu/addhealth.
No direct support was received from Grant P01-HD31921 for this
analysis.
Correspondence should be addressed to Yuying Tong, Department
of Sociology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Rm. 431, Sino
Bldg., Shatin, Hong Kong. E-mail: yuyingtong@gmail.com
behavior has been a long-standing public health and
societal issue (Abma, Chandra, Mosher, Peterson, &
Piccinino, 1997). In the United States, ethnic group var-
iations and gender differences in sexual behavior exist,
in part, from differences in environment and associated
norms, cultural values, and opportunity structures
(Upchurch, Levy-Storms, Sucoff, & Aneshensel, 1998).
Compared with other ethnic minorities, Asian American
immigrant youth are the least likely to have had sexual
intercourse (Ahrold & Meston, 2010; Harris, 1999;
Okazaki, 2002), and they have, on average, fewer sexual
partners than adolescents of other racial and ethnic
groups. However, the rate of having had sexual inter-
course among Asian American youth is more than
30% by the age of 18, which is a much higher percentage
than that of youth of the same age in Asia (Hahm,
Lahiff, & Barreto, 2006). Studies have found that Asian
American youth also had less accurate knowledge about
HIV=AIDS than their non-Asian American counter-
parts (DiClemente, Zorn, & Temoshok, 1987; Strunin,
1991), especially regarding preventing its transmission
(Horan & DiClemente, 1993). Furthermore, conserva-
tive Asian culture may inhibit open discussion about
sex with adults (Horan & DiClemente, 1993; Moore &
Erickson, 1985).
Thus, although Asian American adolescents are less
likely to be sexually active than adolescents from other
ethnic groups in the United States, it is still important
 SEXUAL BEHAVIOR OF ASIAN AMERICAN YOUTH
to understand how this group acculturates to American
sexual norms. In this article, I first investigate how the
process of acculturation increases the likelihood that
Asian American adolescents initiate their first sexual
intercourse and have more sexual partners. Second, I
examine the disparity in the adoption of American sex-
ual mores between males and females, given that parents
usually have different expectations for the norms of sex-
ual behavior for their male and female children. The
main variables used to measure the degree of accultura-
tion in American society were the immigrant generation
(i.e., first generation, second generation, or later),
whether English was spoken at home, and the pro-
portion of English speakers in the neighborhood. The
dataset is from the National Longitudinal Study of
Adolescent Health (Add Health).
Background
‘‘Invisible’’ Minority in Risk Behavior Research
Asian Americans have been seen as a ‘‘model
minority.’’ For example, Asian American students
consistently score higher on standardized tests of mathe-
matical ability, have higher grade point averages, and
attend four-year colleges at higher rates than students
of other races (Xie & Goyette, 1997). Asian American
adults as a group also attain a higher level of education
than other minorities or Whites in the United States
(Barringer, Takeuchi, & Xenos, 1990). Furthermore,
Asian parents are stereotyped as being strict with their
children. They not only value academic achievement in
their children, but also tend to discourage nonacademic
activities, such as being overactive socially (e.g., sleeping
over), compared with Western parents. Accordingly,
early sexual behavior is strongly discouraged and, there-
fore, is almost ‘‘invisible’’ among Asian American youth.
For this reason, previous studies of adolescent sexual
behavior have focused on other ethnic minorities. For
example, many studies have examined the sexual beha-
viors of African American youth (Hovell et al., 1994;
Miller, Forehand, & Kotchick, Aneshensel, Mudgal, &
McNeely, 1999) and Hispanic American adolescents
(Upchurch, Aneshensel, Mudgal, & McNeely, 2001;
Hovell et al., 1994). Fewer studies have examined the sex-
ual behavior of Asian American youth. On the one hand,
the conservative sexual norms of Asian Americans make
them appear to be unlikely to engage in risky sexual beha-
viors. On the other hand, the lack of studies on the sexual
behavior of Asian American youths may be partly due to
the relatively low availability of data. A small number of
related studies tended to use regional data or
non-randomly selected samples. For example, Schuster,
Bell, and Kanouse (1996) used county district school data
in southern California and found that Asian American
adolescents were more likely to be virgins compared to
adolescents of other racial and ethnic groups. In another
study, which used the same data, the authors found that
Asian American youth on average had fewer lifetime sex-
ual partners (Schuster, Bell, Nakajima, & Kanouse, 1998).
Other studies reported similar results using different data
sources (Grunbaum, Lowry, Kann, & Pateman, 2000;
Harris, 1999; Horan & DiClemente, 1993; Laumann,
Gagnon, Michael, & Michaels, 1994). Similarly, Asian
Americans had the highest median age for their first
sexual intercourse (Upchurch et al., 1998). However, the
results of the southern Californian district study showed
that once Asian American adolescents become sexually
active, they are similar to other ethnic groups in terms
of the numbers of lifetime partners and risky sexual beha-
viors that can transmit HIV (Schuster et al., 1998).
Acculturation and Sex Norms
Although Asian Americans have conservative sex
norms and low visibility regarding risky sexual beha-
viors, they may not be homogenous in their sexual prac-
tices. Those who have been largely exposed to the
United States may adopt the dominant norms in the
mainstream society—that is, become acculturated.
According to Gordon (1964), acculturation is a process
by which immigrant ethnic groups are exposed to and
gradually adopt the ways of the dominant culture.
During the acculturation process, immigrants gradually
incorporate the attitudes and norms of the dominant
culture. Because Americans have more liberal sexual
norms than their counterparts in Asian countries
(Meston, Trapnell, & Gorzalka, 1996), it is natural that
Asian American adolescents will gradually become more
accepting of American sexual norms with more accul-
turation. In particular, scholars have explained that
many Asian cultures tend to place a great emphasis on
propriety and strict observance of a moral and social
code (e.g., Ng & Lau, 1990), which tends to discourage
sexual activity, especially among adolescents. When
Asian people live in a Western society, this traditional
moral code may be challenged; this is especially true
for adolescents. The extent and speed with which Asian
Americans replace their conservative sexual norms with
the normative sexual practices in the United States
reflects the influences of acculturation on sexuality.
In empirical studies, researchers have used different
methods to assess acculturation, some unidimensional
and some multidimensional (Meston & Ahrold, 2010).
Among them, length of exposure and language exposure
are two indicators that are most frequently used. As
length of residence indicates the time exposure to U.S.
culture, longer residence in the United States is expected
to lead to more liberal sexual norms. Empirical research
has found some support for this. For example, research
in Canada has shown that adolescents who were more
recent immigrants had more conservative sexual values
than those who were Canadian-born or long-term
561
 TONG
Canadian residents (Meston, Trapnell, & Gorzalka,
1998). As for language exposure, although all
school-aged adolescents have to speak English at school,
the language spoken at home varies among immigrant
families. Speaking a language other than English at
home has been seen as an obstacle for adolescents inte-
grating into mainstream American society (e.g., Flores,
Abreu, & Tomany-Korman, 2005), but it can help to
preserve traditional cultural values, such as conservative
sexual norms (Guilamo-Ramos, Jaccard, Pena, & Gold-
berg, 2005). When the home environment is more open
to English being spoken at home, the family are more
likely accepting of American culture and norms, which
might lead to more liberal sexual norms. One previous
study showed that speaking English at home signifi-
cantly increased the likelihood of sexual intercourse
for female adolescents (Hahm et al., 2006).
In addition to the language exposure at home, lan-
guage exposure in the neighborhood might be also an
important indicator of acculturation. Unfortunately,
many studies have ignored the degree of contact with
American culture at the community level. Neighbor-
hoods in the United States are becoming increasingly
diverse, in part, because of the continual resettlement
of refugees and immigrants from around the world
(Goodkind & Foster-Fishman, 2002). Concentrations
of immigrants and preservation of their native language
may facilitate immigrant settlement and enhance the
well-being of recent arrivals. However, living in such a
community may also isolate immigrant families from
mainstream American society. Thus, it is important to
take into account the exposure to American culture at
the neighborhood level when studying the effects of
acculturation on the adoption of American sexual
norms among immigrants.
Sexual Double Standards
Socially structured gender roles have double stan-
dards with regard to the sexual behavior of men and
women. Most cultures, including mainstream American
culture, advocate a pleasure-centered or recreational
focus on sexuality for men and a person-centered or
relational focus on sexuality for women (DeLamater,
1981). Women are generally expected to think of sex
within a committed or dating relationship as the ideal,
whereas men are more accepting of casual sex (Petersen
& Hyde, 2011). Although this idea is still predominant
in the United States, the sexual activity of American
men and women has more similarities than differences
nowadays (Petersen & Hyde, 2011). For instance, nearly
50% of adolescent females and males engage in sexual
intercourse by the age of 18, and by the time adolescence
is over, nearly four out of five have engaged in sexual
intercourse (Laumann et al., 1994). However, sexual
double standards are still strongly held in Asian culture.
Asian immigrants, especially young daughters, are
562
expected to comply with male-defined criteria of ‘‘ideal’’
feminine virtues by their families. Although Asian par-
ents place importance on passing on their native culture,
language and traditions both to their male and female
children, they do not typically concern themselves with
the sexual or dating practices of their sons as much as
that of their daughters. Daughters are more likely than
sons to be recipients of communication from parents
about sex, and these messages to daughters often
emphasize undesirable consequences (e.g., Espiritu,
2001; Kim & Ward, 2007) because the sexual conduct
of daughters is a symbol of family honor or because par-
ents are concerned about the risk of pregnancy (Gupta,
1999).
Thus, the sexual behavior of Asian American youth
may differ according to gender because Asian immigrant
families use their own mechanisms to stress gender
identity and control adolescent sexuality. However, with
acculturation, the differences may decrease or even
reverse. For example, Marin, Sabogal, Marin, Otero-
Sabogal, and Perez-Stable (1987) showed that among
more acculturated youth, attitudes regarding sexual
double standards are less strongly held.
Hypotheses
Based on the foregoing theoretical background, I
posited the following hypotheses:
H1: Asian American youth who have spent more years
of their lives in the United States will be more likely
to initiate sexual activity early than those who have
lived fewer years in the United States.
H2: Asian American youth who have spent more years of
their lives in the United States will have a greater
number of sexual partners than those who have
spent a shorter time in the United States.
H3: Asian American youth who speak their native
language at home will be less likely to participate
in early sexual behaviors than those who speak
English at home.
H4: Adolescents who are from a neighborhood domi-
nated by English speakers will be more likely to
have sex earlier and have more sexual partners.
H5: Male Asian American youths will be more likely
to initiate sexual intercourse early and have more
sexual partners than their female counterparts.
Data
The Asian American sample from Add Health was
used in this study. Add Health started as a nationally
representative sample of more than 20,000 adolescents
(Grades 7–12) in 1994 through 1995 in the United States
(Harris, 1999). The respondents have since then been
followed, and they participated in three additional
 SEXUAL BEHAVIOR OF ASIAN AMERICAN YOUTH
in-home interviews in 1995 through 1996 (Wave 2), 2002
(Wave 3), and 2008 (Wave 4). Add Health adopted a
multistage, stratified, school-based, cluster sampling
design. To study the sexual behavior of Asian American
youth, this study used data from the first three waves of
Add Health data. A number of special oversamples were
also performed for in-home interviews, including ethnic
samples, physically disabled adolescents and a genetic
sample. A parent, usually the mother, was interviewed
in Wave 1.
In Wave 1, the respondents were adolescents aged 11
to 18 years old. By the time of Wave 3, they had all
entered young adulthood (18–26 years). The proportion
that had not had their first experience of sexual inter-
course by Wave 3 ranged from about 10% to 15% (at
26 years) to about 20% to 30% (at 19 years; Guo &
Tong, 2006). Because not all individuals in the sample
had had sexual intercourse by the time of the Wave 3
data collection, the occurrences of their first sexual
experiences are rightly censored. The censored periods
must be dealt with in the framework of survival analysis
instead of linear regression (Cox & Oakes, 1984).
There are some features that make the dataset appro-
priate for this analysis. First, it is a nationally represen-
tative dataset, which is an advantage over previous
studies on Asian American sexual behavior that were
based on regional data. Second, the data include infor-
mation about the parents’ socioeconomic status (SES)
and family process variables, such as parental monitor-
ing, the parent–child relationship, and parental attitudes
toward adolescent sexuality, which are important vari-
ables to control for in a study of adolescent sex. How-
ever, this dataset also has some limitations for the
purposes of this study. For example, self-reported data
about sexual behavior may contain errors. In addition,
there is a considerable amount of missing data in the
parental questionnaire, which make important family
SES variables such as parental income unusable; thus,
parental education was used as a proxy for family SES.
Measures
Dependent Variables
Age at first sex. At each of the three waves, the Add
Health respondents were asked about their sexual his-
tories. They were first screened by this question: ‘‘Have
you ever had sexual intercourse? The definition of sexual
intercourse is when a male inserts his penis into a
female’s vagina.’’ If the respondent’s answer was yes,
he or she was then asked the following: ‘‘In what month
and year did you have sexual intercourse for the very
first time?’’ To protect confidentiality and reduce the
number of non-responses, this section of the interview
was self-administered by audio computer-assisted
self-interview. Sensitive questions were read to
respondents by means of audio headphones. Respon-
dents were given instructions on how to provide answers
on the computer. There is a possibility that some adoles-
cents participated in oral or anal sex to preserve their
‘‘technical virginity’’ (Bersamin, Fisher, Walker, Hill,
& Grube, 2007) or avoid pregnancy. However, this kind
of information is not available in the dataset, which
could have contributed to the lower rate of sexual inter-
course among Asian American adolescents. This limi-
tation is addressed in the conclusion section of this
paper.
Moreover, reporting errors are possible because early
sexual intercourse is a private behavior and often con-
sidered to be socially undesirable. Previous studies
have examined the accuracy of reported dates for the
age of first sexual intercourse (Alexander, Somerfield,
Ensminger, Johnson, & Kim, 1993; Lauritsen &
Swicegood, 1997; Rodgers, Billy, & Udry, 1982;
Siegel, Aten, & Roghmann, 1998; Upchurch, Lillard,
Aneshensel, & Li, 2001). These studies generally found
that males are more likely than females to provide incon-
sistent answers regarding the age at which they first had
sex. The youngest males were the least likely to provide
accurate reports about their sexual experiences (Guo &
Tong, 2006). For Add Health data, Upchurch, Lillard,
et al. (2001) showed that White and African American
males were more likely than White females to revise the
age reported at Wave 1 to an older age at Wave 2. Despite
some inconsistency across waves, the reporting errors
appear to be largely random. More important, they have
little effect on the estimated ages of the first experience of
sexual intercourse or the effects of socioeconomic and
demographic predictors for the age of first-time sex
(Guo & Tong, 2006; Lauritsen & Swicegood, 1997;
Upchurch, Lillard, et al., 2001; Wu, Martin, & Long,
2001). In this study, when a reporting inconsistency
occurred, priority was given to the age reported at a later
wave because older adolescents tend to provide more
accurate answers (Siegel et al., 1998).
Number of sexual partners. At Wave 3 of the Add
Health data, the respondents aged 19 to 26 were asked this
question: ‘‘With how many partners have you ever had
vaginal intercourse, even if only once?’’ As with any survey
of sensitive private information, reporting accuracy is a
major concern. To protect confidentiality, the entire Add
Health questionnaire was completed without requiring
names of partners and any other identifying information.
Anonymous surveys on sexual behavior have been shown
to be more likely to yield accurate responses than
non-anonymous surveys (Alexander & Fisher, 2003).
Independent Variables
Length of exposure to American society. The
immigrant generation was one of the indicators of
acculturation. As Americans generally initiate sexual
563
 TONG
intercourse earlier than Asians, it is expected that longer
exposure to American society leads to earlier initiation
of sexual intercourse and more sexual partners. The
immigrant generation is determined by both the respon-
dents’ and their parents’ country of birth, which was
asked in the Wave 1 survey. If the respondent and at
least one parent of this respondent were born outside
the United States, the respondent was regarded as a
first-generation immigrant. If the respondent was born
in the United States and at least one parent was born
outside the United States, then the respondent was con-
sidered a second-generation immigrant. The remaining
respondents were coded as third-generation immigrants
or higher because specific information for third-
generation (or higher) immigrants was not available in
the dataset (information about the birthplace of grand-
parents was not collected).
Exposure to English language at home. The second
indicator of acculturation was the language the youth
was exposed to. At the family level, it was expected that
speaking the mother tongue at home plays a role in pro-
tecting adolescents from engaging in early sexual inter-
course. The double standards of sexual norms are
strongly held by Asian parents, so they have different
attitudes regarding sex for sons and daughters. These
double standards give Asian males more freedom to
engage in sexual activity than females. However, this
phenomenon may be changed by acculturation. Pre-
vious studies have shown that language acculturation
differed according to gender among Hispanic immigrant
youth (Upchurch, Aneshensel, et al., 2001). To reflect
the interaction between acculturation and gender, this
language variable was combined together with gender
and coded as follows: (a) female speaking English, (b)
female speaking the mother tongue, (c) male speaking
English, and (d) male speaking the mother tongue.
Language acculturation at the community level.
Community context shapes the life opportunities of resi-
dents in important ways. At the community level, a large
proportion of English speakers indicate greater exposure
to American culture and norms (i.e., more acculturated).
In this study, the proportion of people who spoke
English within the census tract was used to measure
the acculturation at the community level. Despite some
drawbacks, the census tract has been reasonably consist-
ent with nested ecological structures. Therefore, using
the census tract as being indicative of neighborhood is
an efficient and convenient way to capture neighbor-
hood characteristics (Sampson, Morenoff, & Gannon-
Rowley, 2002).
Control variables of family and parenting. The
family is one of the main contexts in which children
are socialized. Parental behavior and attitudes are
564
critical in the socialization of adolescents (Miller et al.,
1999). Family ethnicity researchers generally agree that
the family is the key social agent that perpetuates ethnic
cultures through its primary socialization function
(Kendall, 1988; Wilkinson, 1993). Ethnic families nor-
mally emphasize family relationships and personal
virtues, but they are expressed in different ways. The
extent to which ethnic families succeed in socializing
their children and controlling their behavior according
to traditional values tends to vary between racial and
ethnic groups, partly because of different socioeconomic
conditions, cultural beliefs, and historical experiences
(Jang, 2002). Asian American success in terms of SES
is due in part to family values and stability, which have
generally also protected their youth from risky sexual
behaviors. Thus, family SES and parental attitudes were
controlled in the models.
Family income was disregarded in the model due to
the low response rate; therefore, parental education was
used to indicate family SES. Parental education was
combined and re-categorized into two types: high school
graduate or not.1 Family structure affects children’s
adaptation to and interaction with society, which is an
important factor to control for. Family structure was
coded as a dummy variable (staying with two biological
parents or not) during the Wave 1 survey time.
Parental monitoring, the parent–child relationship,
and parental attitude to sex were used to indicate the
degree of parental control. Parental monitoring or
supervision of adolescents’ social activities has been con-
sistently associated with delayed sexual initiation or less
risky sexual behavior (Luster & Small, 1994). Parental
monitoring has also been associated with low-level risky
behaviors such as alcohol use and delinquency (Patter-
son, Reid, & Dishion, 1992), and with better overall psy-
chosocial adjustment among adolescents (Baumrind,
1991). Parental monitoring was an index constructed
to include whether parents allowed their children to
make their own decisions regarding ‘‘being at home dur-
ing weekday nights, people to hang out with, what to
wear, how much television can be watched, what time
to go to bed during workday nights, and decisions about
what to eat.’’ Each of these items was a dummy variable
in the original codebook, so the constructed index had a
minimum of zero and a maximum of seven, with higher
scores indicating stricter parents.
The parent–child relationship is linked with sexual
activity during adolescence. Adolescents who describe
their parents as attentive and supportive report less
sexual activity during junior high school and high school
(Mueller & Powers, 1990). Parent–child closure was
used to represent the parent–child relationship.
1
I used the more specific categories for parental education, but it
did not have an impact on the age of first-time sexual intercourse.
To make the model more parsimonious, I grouped them into a binary
variable of high school graduate or not.
 SEXUAL BEHAVIOR OF ASIAN AMERICAN YOUTH
Parent–child closure was coded as the number of times a
parent spoke to a child’s friend’s parents during the pre-
vious four weeks. Parental attitudes about adolescent
sexual activity are associated with the level of activity
of adolescent sexuality. Permissive parental attitudes
are associated with earlier sexual activity among teen-
agers. In the Add Health study, adolescents were asked
about both their mother’s and father’s attitudes toward
their sexuality during adolescence, with higher scores
indicating stronger approval.
Other control variables. In addition to control vari-
ables at the family level, other control variables
included demographic variables, ethnicity, religiosity,
and neighborhood SES. Cultural differences exist
among Asian Americans, according to their country of
origin and ethnicity. Asian Americans of different eth-
nic groups have immigrated to the United States under
diverse circumstances and time periods, which may
impact their adoption of American sexual norms. Asian
ethnicity includes Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Indian,
Korean, Vietnamese, as well as other Asians who do
not belong to these ethnic groups. Religion is a histori-
cally important institution for regulating sexuality in
Western society. The frequency of church attendance
was used to measure religiosity, which has been widely
used in previous literature. Church attendance was div-
ided into four categories: (a) do not attend church, (b)
less than once per month, (c) less than once per week,
and (d) weekly or more. In addition, a social context
variable of neighborhood median family income in the
census tract was included to measure SES of neighbor-
hood. The logarithm format was used to correct the
skewness of median family income.
Analytical Approach
The age at which sex first occurs is a continuous
variable, but it is rightly censored because not all respon-
dents had become sexually active at the time of the Wave
3 survey. This censored data must be handled using a
survival analysis. Because the proportional hazards
model (Cox model; Cox & Oakes, 1984) can be used to
study the effects of many different factors on the risk
of experiencing an event over time, this model was cho-
sen to analyze the age at which sexual intercourse
started. A lower risk in the Cox model indicates an older
age for first-time sex (Upchurch, Aneshensel, et al.,
2001). The Cox model can be written as follows:
kðt; xÞ ¼ kðtÞ expðxbÞ
In this equation, k(t;x) is the hazard ratio for experienc-
ing the event at time t given the observed characteristics,
k(t) is the baseline hazard at time t, and exp(xb) is the
multiplier capturing the impact of individual, family,
and neighborhood predictors. As the data is constructed
in a hierarchical format (e.g., individuals within a
neighborhood and school), individuals from the same
neighborhood or school are not independent of one
another, which may artificially decrease standard errors.
Therefore, the Huber–White robust statistical errors
(Huber, 1967; White, 1980) in Stata (a statistical soft-
ware package; StataCorp, College Station, TX) was used
to adjust the standard errors of the parameter estimates.
The number of sexual partners is a count variable;
therefore, a generalized estimating equations Poisson
regression model was used (Zeger & Liang, 1986) adjust-
ing for the correlation at the school level. The model can
be written as follows:
EðYij jxij Þ ¼ expðb0 þ b1 imm genij þ b2 ethnicityij þ


Þ;
where E(Yijjxij) is the expected number of sexual part-
ners for an individual i in school j given the individual’s
characteristics xij To interpret the change that would
occur for one unit change in the predictor, the inci-
dence rate ratio (IRR) is obtained. When an IRR for
a particular covariate is lower than 1, it indicates fewer
sexual partners relative to its reference category, and
vice versa.
Results
Descriptive and Life Table Estimates
Table 1 presents the descriptive analysis and distri-
bution of all variables included in the models. About
three-fourths of Asian American adolescents reported
their first experience of sexual intercourse by the end
of the Wave 3 data collection. Most Asian American
youth were first- or second-generation immigrants,
which comprise about 85% of all the relevant genera-
tions. More than one-half of Asian American adoles-
cents spoke English at home, and there was no
difference between males and females.
To have a descriptive comparison of the time of first
sexual intercourse between Asian Americans and other
racial=ethnic groups, Figure 1 presents the proportion
of those who had sexual intercourse by the end of the
Wave 3 survey using life table calculations. Panel 1 in
Figure 1 gives the proportion of youth who had sexual
intercourse for all Add Health in-home respondents by
gender, revealing little difference between males and
females before the age of 18. Panel 2 shows the pro-
portion for all Add Health in-home respondents by race,
revealing that a higher proportion of African Americans
started having sexual intercourse in early adolescence
than other racial and ethnic groups, and Asians had
the lowest proportion. Panel 3 shows the proportion
of Asian American youth having had sex by gender.
Despite what might be expected based on sexual double
565
 TONG

Table 1. Sample’s Percentages=Means and Standard Deviations in the Analyses of Age of First Sexual Intercourse and Number of
Sexual Partners

Model of Onset of Sex Intercourse Model of Number of Sex Partners

Variable Percentage or Mean SD Percentage or Mean SD

Age of first intercourse (for those who initiated sex) by Wave 3 17.45 2.4
Proportion having had intercourse by Wave 3 0.76 0.43
Number of sex partners by Wave 3 3.09 2.05
Individual variables
Age by wave 3 22.80 1.68
Ethnicity
 
Chinese 0.25 0.43
 
Filipino 0.45 0.50
 
Japanese 0.06 0.24
 
Indian 0.03 0.17
 
Korean 0.07 0.25
 
Vietnamese 0.05 0.22
 
Other Asian 0.17 0.38
Education at Wave 3
Less than high school 5.21
High school graduate 24.58
Some college 43.48
College graduate 26.72
Immigrant generation
 
First-generation immigrants 0.41 0.49
 
Second-generation immigrants 0.44 0.50
 
Third plus generation immigrants 0.15 0.36
Language spoken at home
 
Female, English 0.31 0.46
 
Female, non-English 0.17 0.38
 
Male, non-English 0.18 0.39
 
Male, English 0.34 0.47
Family background variable
 
Two biological parents family 0.71 0.45
 
Parents high school graduates 0.93 0.26
Church attendance
Weekly or more 47.70 24.95
Once a month or more 18.10 13.79
Less than a month 12.87 37.34
Do not attend church 21.36 23.92
Parental control
 
Parent–child closure 1.71 1.42
 
Parenting monitoring 5.08 1.74
 
Parent attitude to sex 5.75 2.52
Marriage and cohabitation history
Married and cohabited 0.05
Married but not cohabited 0.07
Non-married but cohabited 0.25
Non-married and not cohabited 0.63
Neighborhood variables
 
Proportion of people speaking English language 0.93 0.06
 
Logged median family income 10.53 0.33

Note. N ¼ 1060. Asterisks mean that the variables in the model of number of sexual partners were the same as in the model of age at first sexual
intercourse. Model 1 used the ‘‘church attendence’’ measured at Wave 1, and Model 2 used ‘‘church attendence’’ measured at Wave 3.

standards, Asian American females tended to lose their
virginity earlier than their male counterparts. Panel 4
shows the proportion of Asian American youth who
had had sex, sorted by gender and language. Females
who spoke English at home were the most likely to lose
their virginity at an early age, followed by males who
spoke English, and finally males and females who did
not speak English at home.
The average number of sexual partners for Asians
was 3.09, which is lower than the overall average of
5.43 (all races). Figure 2 (Panel 1) shows the number
of sexual partners by gender. About 25% of Asian
Americans had no sexual partners by the end of the
survey, which is consistent with the percentage of
people who reported that they had not yet had their
first experience of sexual intercourse. About 37%

566
 SEXUAL BEHAVIOR OF ASIAN AMERICAN YOUTH

Figure 1. Proportion of those having had first sexual intercourse at given ages (color figure available online).

reported a total of one or two partners, whilst 16%
reported three to four partners. Nearly one-fourth
reported that they had had more than four sexual part-
ners. Females were more likely to report a relatively
high number of sexual partners, in contrast to what
would be predicted by the sexual double standard
theory. Figure 2 (Panel 2) shows the number of sexual
partners by gender and language, revealing that
females who spoke English had more sexual partners.
Regression Results of First Sexual Intercourse
Model 1 in Table 2 displays the hazard ratios for the
onset of sexual intercourse for Asian American youth.

Figure 2. Percentage distribution of number of sex partners (color figure available online).

567
 TONG

Table 2. Hazard Ratios and Incidence Rate Ratios for Age at First Sexual Intercourse and Number of Sex Partners With Robust
Standard Errors

Variable Model 1 (Onset of Sexual Intercourse) Model 2 (Number of Sex Partners)

Ethnicity Hazard Ratio Robust SE Incidence Rate Ratio Robust SE

Filipino 1.411 0.096 1.075 0.105
Japanese 1.264 0.138 0.818 0.167
Indian 0.967 0.171 1.386 0.423
Korean 0.933 0.154 1.261 0.212
Vietnamese 1.196 0.173 1.048 0.262
Other Asian 1.201 0.103 0.938 0.092
Chinese (referent)
Age at Wave 3 1.079 0.030
Education at Wave 3
High school graduate 1.145þ 0.089
Some college 1.101 0.111
College graduate 0.978 0.086
Less than high school (referent)
Immigrant generation
First-generation immigrants 0.702 0.094 0.859 0.172
Second-generation immigrants 0.745 0.104 0.849 0.108
Third plus generation immigrants (referent)
Language spoken at home
Female, non-English 0.663 0.066 0.598 0.052
Male, non-English 0.605 0.099 0.618þ 0.153
Male, English 0.723 0.094 0.832 0.114
Female, English (referent)
Family background
Two biological parents family 0.907 0.085 0.972 0.074
Parents high school graduates 0.977 0.119 1.286 0.135
Church attendance
Weekly or more 1.101 1.122 0.605 0.053
Once a month or more 1.239 1.109 0.851 0.107
Less than a month 0.969 0.074 0.883 0.095
Do not attend church (referent)
Parental control
Parent–child closure 1.017 0.027 1.061 0.024
Parenting monitoring 0.994 0.014 0.999 0.026
Parent attitude to sex 1.072 0.012 1.031 0.026
Marriage and cohabitation history
Married and cohabited 1.596 0.171
Married but not cohabited 0.952 0.123
Non-married but cohabited 1.447 0.160
Non-married and not cohabited (referent)
Neighborhood socioeconomic status
Proportion of English speakers 0.822 0.425 5.053 4.167
Logged median family income 0.807 0.087 0.899 0.135
Number of persons 1060 1047
Log likelihood 5096.2325 3292.9986
 
p < .001 p < .01  p < .05 y p < .10.

The length of exposure to American society shows that
the process of acculturation influences the onset of
sexual intercourse among Asian American adolescents,
with less exposure associated with virginity. Compared
to third-generation immigrants, second-generation
immigrant youth had about a 26% lower risk of early
first-time sexual intercourse, and first-generation immi-
grant youth had about a 30% lower risk. Regarding
the effect of language exposure, compared with the ref-
erence group of females who spoke English at home,
females who spoke their mother tongue at home were
39% less likely to start having sex at an early age. For
males who did not speak English at home, the risk
was reduced by about 34%. For males who spoke
English at home, the risk was about 27% lower. These
findings demonstrate that both the length of exposure
and language exposure to American society influence
the initiation of sexual intercourse among Asian Amer-
ican adolescents—that is, acculturation leads to more
liberal sex among adolescents. At the neighborhood
level, however, the proportion of people who speak Eng-
lish does not display such an acculturation effect. For
the family control variable, similar to a previous study
(Miller et al., 1999) of African Americans and Hispanic

568
 SEXUAL BEHAVIOR OF ASIAN AMERICAN YOUTH
adolescents, family structure was not a significant pre-
dictor for initiating sexual intercourse. Other studies
have also reported inconsistent results with regard to
the effect of family structure on sexuality (Harvey &
Spigner, 1995; Miller et al., 1999). Parental education
did not show a significant effect. With regard to parent-
ing style, parent–child closure bond did not influence
timing of first sexual intercourse. In contrast to what
was expected, parental monitoring was not a significant
predictor either. However, a less permissive parental
attitude toward sexual intercourse was significantly
associated with later initiation of sexual intercourse.
This is consistent with previous studies, which showed
that rather than transmitting sexual knowledge directly
to their children, parents more often transmit sexual
attitudes and values indirectly (Yarber & Greer, 1986).
These parental attitudes toward premarital sexual
activity, as perceived by their adolescents, may be
important predictors of adolescent sexual activity and
contraceptive use (Baker, Thalberg, & Morrison, 1988).
For other control variables, the findings were that
Filipinos, Japanese and other Asian groups were signifi-
cantly different from Chinese adolescents in the age of
first sexual intercourse. Compared with Chinese youth,
the risk of starting to have sexual intercourse was about
50% higher for Filipinos, about 25% higher for Japa-
nese, and 29% higher for other Asian groups. The other
non-Asian ethnic groups were similar to those of Chi-
nese adolescents. Religiosity has been found to correlate
with adolescent premarital sexual behavior in previous
studies (Woodroof, 1985). However, compared to those
who did not go to church, attending church more often
did not affect the risk of initiating sexual intercourse
among Asian American youth. In another model (not
shown), ‘‘weekly or more frequent attendance’’ was used
as the referent, and this showed that more frequent
attendance was associated with a lower risk of initiating
sexual intercourse compared with less frequent attend-
ance among those who did go to church. This may sug-
gest that religious doctrine on sexuality mainly affects
those who go to church, but has no effect on those
who do not go to church. At the neighborhood level, a
median household income significantly lowered the risk
of starting to have sex. This finding indicates that a high
SES neighborhood lowers the likelihood of Asian Amer-
ican youth initiating sexual intercourse, suggesting that
Asian parents in high SES neighborhoods may be stric-
ter with their children.
Regression Results of Number of Sexual Partners
Model 2 in Table 2 displays the IRR of the number of
sexual partners for Asian American youth. The result
shows that length of exposure to American society does
not influence the number of sexual partners. Meanwhile,
English language exposure significantly affected the
number of sexual partners for females only. The IRR
for females who spoke their mother tongue at home,
compared to those who spoke English at home, was 0.6
to 1, showing that females who spoke their mother ton-
gue at home had fewer sexual partners than those who
spoke English at home. Similar results were found at
the neighborhood level. Having more English speakers
in the neighborhood was associated with more sexual
partners among Asian American youth. These findings
show that acculturation, as indicated by English lan-
guage exposure, plays an important role in the adoption
of American sexual norms by Asian youth. For the fam-
ily control variables, family structure did not signifi-
cantly affect the number of sexual partners, which is
consistent with the age at which sexual intercourse first
occurs. However, adolescents whose parents were high
school graduates had significantly more sexual partners.
This may indicate that those from a high SES family had
more opportunities for a variety of sexual partners once
parents no longer had control over their sexual behavior.
It is interesting to see that none of the parental control
variables such as monitoring by parents, the parent–child
relationship, and attitude to sex affected the number of
sexual partners, which may also be due to the parents’
diminishing control over their children’s sexuality once
they begin to have sex. For other control variables, those
who attended church ‘‘weekly or more’’ had fewer sex
partners than those who did not go to church. This
finding supports the importance of religion in the social
control of sexual behavior. In addition, the results for
respondents who married but never cohabited did not
differ from those who never married, but those who
cohabited before had more sexual partners than others,
regardless of whether they later married. Unlike the
model for the age of starting to have sex, the neighbor-
hood SES did not influence the number of sexual
partners.
Discussion and Conclusion
In this article, I examined the influences of accultura-
tion on the sexual behavior of Asian American youth.
Two sexual behavior variables were examined: age at
which sexual intercourse first occurs and the number of
sexual partners. Acculturation was measured by the
following variables: immigrant generation, language
spoken at home, and proportion of English speakers
within the census tract (indicating the degree of exposure
to American society at the neighborhood level).
Overall, the results suggest that early initiation of
sexual intercourse and multiple sexual partners are
shaped by the acculturation process in American society.
This finding confirms the idea that longer exposure to
American society increases the likelihood of early sexual
activity. This result differs from a study of Hispanic
youth (Upchurch, Aneshensel, et al., 2001), which did
not find generational differences in age of onset of first
569
 TONG
sexual intercourse. However, in this study, length of
exposure had no effect on the number of sexual partners,
which may be an indication of the differential effects of
acculturation on when sexual activity begins and the
continuation of sexual activity thereafter.
Despite the sexual double standards, Asian American
male youth did not appear to begin sexual activity earlier
nor have more sexual partners than their female counter-
parts. In contrast, females were more likely to start hav-
ing sex earlier with increasing exposure to the English
language. In particular, Asian American females who
spoke English at home tended to engage in sex earlier
than the other groups studied and have more sexual part-
ners on average than their native language-speaking
counterparts. This gender disparity suggests that lan-
guage plays a key role in passing on traditional values
and moderates the process of acculturation among Asian
American males and females. Specifically, speaking the
mother tongue at home played a role in protecting ado-
lescents from engaging in early sexual intercourse and
having multiple sexual partners, whereas more exposure
to the English language increased this risk for young
female Asian Americans in particular. This pattern dif-
fers from the findings of the study of Hispanic youth
by Upchurch, Aneshensel, et al. (2001), which found that
Hispanic male adolescents engaged in sexual intercourse
earlier than females, and males who spoke English were
more likely to engage in early sexual behaviors than any
other groups. This finding on gender disparity cannot be
explained by Asian culture and values because Asian
American parents tend to pay more attention to the daily
social activities of females than those of males. Thus, the
cause might lie in the acculturation difference for Asian
American males and females in the United States, which
cannot be fully captured by dimensions of length and
language exposure in the host society. Despite lack of
direct evidence, previous research has shed some light
on this. For example, research has shown that Asian
American women tend to be more socially accepted by
the host society than Asian American men (Sue &
Morishima, 1982). Sue and Morishima speculated that
ethnic minority women pose less of a threat to society
than ethnic minority men do. Thus, Asian American
women may be quicker to adapt to the new culture than
Table 3. The Race Distribution of Sex Partners for First Three Partners Since June 1995 for Asian Americans by Gender in Add
Health Sample
Female (%)
Race/Ethnicity 1st Partner 2nd Partner 3rd Partner
Asian 61.45 49.21
White 20.24 24.8
Black 5.78 9.45
Other 12.53 16.57
Total 100.00 100.00
570
Asian American men (Mok, 1999). As a result, they have
a larger pool of potential sexual partners than their male
counterparts. Other studies have shown that other races
prefer not to date Asian males because of the stereotype
that Asian men lack masculinity and social skills
(Fisman, Iyengar, Kamenica, & Simonson, 2008). There-
fore, although people generally have a strong preference
for partners of their own race, Asian men may have fewer
dating opportunities within both their own racial group
and other racial and ethnic groups than Asian women
(Kitano & Chai, 1982; Kitano, Yeung, Chai, & Hatanaka,
1984).
Although the Add Health data cannot directly test
whether Asian females are more accepted than males by
mainstream American society, information about who
they dated can be found in the data. Based on the relation-
ship data from Add Health Wave 3 data, I compared the
race of sexual partners by gender (see Table 3). The results
show that a higher proportion of Asian American females
had had partners of other races compared with their male
counterparts. In addition, Asian American females were
also more likely to find partners who were older than
themselves (see Table 4), whereas males were more likely
to find partners who were younger than themselves. These
results indicate that Asian American females indeed have
more variety when choosing partners.
Finally, this study also found that Asian Americans
who lived in predominantly English-speaking neighbor-
hoods tended to have more sexual partners. This finding
further supports the hypothesis that greater exposure to
American culture at the neighborhood level is important
for the acculturation of ethnic minorities in the United
States.
There were some study limitations that warrant con-
sideration. First, this study assumed that starting to
have sex at a young age is detrimental to adolescent
health; however, this may not be true for all adolescents.
Groups that start to have sex later may also reach sexual
maturity later, which may be a bad, rather than a good,
outcome for them. In addition, if protection is properly
used, having multiple sexual partners does not necessa-
rily increase the risk for HIV or other sexually trans-
mitted diseases. Judgment should be made on a case
by case basis when individuals are under consideration.
Male (%)
1st Partner 2nd Partner 3rd Partner
47.53 66.59 63.82 59.26
30.86 21.72 23.58 25.31
6.17 0.48 4.88 3.7
15.43 11.22 7.72 11.72
100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00
 SEXUAL BEHAVIOR OF ASIAN AMERICAN YOUTH
Table 4. The Age Gap and Mean Age Gap of Asian Americans with Their Sex Partners Since June 1995 by Gender in Add Health
Sample
Female (%)
Age Gap 1st Partner 2nd Partner 3rd Partner
Partner is older 0.66 0.61
(þ3.06) (þ4.08) (þ4.20)
Partner is younger 0.13 0.15
(1.46) (1.61) (1.75)
Partner is same age 0.21 0.24
(0) (0)
Total 100.00 100.00 100.00
Note. Age gap is included in parantheses.
Second, although Asian American women were more
likely to have sexual partners of other racial=ethnic
groups than their male counterparts, we do not have
direct evidence to show whether this was because they
were quicker to be accepted by American society. This
is just a speculation based on previous literature and
the racial background of their partners in the dataset.
Third, because Asian culture is more conservative, there
is a possibility that Asian American females may use
oral or anal sex as a way to preserve their technical vir-
ginity. Unfortunately, this could not be examined with
the data available. However, this probably would not
affect the direction of the findings of this study, as the
results showed that more acculturated females, not
males, engaged in sex earlier. If Asian American females
indeed had reservations in reporting their sexual beha-
vior, this may have led to underestimation. The only
potential problem with this is that it is not clear whether
the language spoken at home influenced the likelihood
of engaging in that type of sexual activity. Finally, a
related problem is that adolescents from conservative
cultures may not be likely to provide truthful answers
about their sexual behaviors; therefore, differences
between Asians and other racial and ethnic groups on
sexuality may be less accurate. However, many other
studies have also reported that Asian Americans initiate
sex later than other racial=ethnic groups (e.g., Ahrold &
Meston, 2010; Harris, 1999; Okazaki, 2002), supporting
the results of this study.
In sum, the findings in this article demonstrate that
acculturation is associated with more liberal attitudes
toward sexual practices among Asian American youth.
In general, the findings indicate that a larger degree of
exposure to American society is not necessarily ben-
eficial for Asian Americans. It may be worthwhile for
Asian American families to preserve their cultural values
at the family and neighborhood levels, to lower the like-
lihood of some risky sexual behaviors from being rap-
idly adopted. Moreover, the gender differences in
sexuality are the opposite of what would be expected
based on the double standards of sexual behavior. The
reason might be that Asian women are more accepted
Male (%)
1st Partner 2nd Partner 3rd Partner
0.42 0.22 0.30 0.30
(þ3.30) (þ3.38) (þ4.14)
0.19 0.51 0.48 0.43
(1.88) (2.03) (1.78)
0.38 0.27 0.23 0.27
(0) (0) (0) (0)
100.00 100.00 100.00
by the mainstream of American society and are quicker
to adapt to the new culture than Asian American men.
The racial and age characteristics of females’ sexual
partners indirectly supported this speculation.
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