Sexual Debut among Latino Teens: A Comparison of Mexican-Americans, Cuban-Americans, and Puerto Ricans

Margaret Gassanov, Ohio State University
Lisa Nicholson, Ohio State University

This study investigates the timing of adolescent sexual debut for the three largest Hispanic subgroups in the United States: Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and Cubans. We disentangle the otherwise conflated ethnic identities by country of origin to determine whether there are significant variations in adolescent sexual debut across the three groups. We use data from Add Health. The dependent variable is the risk of first sexual intercourse, which is measured dichotomously as whether the adolescent had sexual intercourse before marriage and is defined in annual intervals from age 11 through 20. The independent variable is ethnicity: (1) Mexican; (2) Cuban; or (3) Puerto Rican. Multivariate analyses control for nativity, sex, race, family structure, SES, religious affiliation, religiosity, and place of residence.