Sexual activity of women in Taiwan
Wang, P.D.; Lin, R.S.
Social Biology 41(3-4): 143-149
1994
ISSN/ISBN: 0037-766X PMID: 7761901 DOI: 10.1080/19485565.1994.9988869Document Number: 288529
Between July 1991 and December 1992 in Taiwan, public health nurses interviewed 17,047 women aged 16-92 years attending family planning clinics at 12 local health centers in metropolitan Taipei to gather baseline data on frequency of sexual intercourse among Taiwanese women and to describe social and demographic characteristics associated with coital frequency. The mean number of acts of sexual intercourse was 6.8/month. The age-specific mean of coital acts/month was 10.3 for women aged less than 25, 7.3 for women aged 25-34, and 6.6 for women aged 35-44. 2.8% of the women had not had sexual intercourse in the last month. 83.64% had had sexual intercourse 1-9 times in the last month. 13.56% had had intercourse at least 10 times. Sexual activity in the last month decreased with age (99.65% for age 25 years; 98.94% for age 35-39; 94.75% for age 45-49; 68.15% for age 55-59; 58.6% for age 60-64; and 40% for age 65 or older; p 0.0001). Unmarried women engaged in sexual intercourse more frequently in the last month than married women (14.2 vs. 6.4; p 0.0001). Married women were much less likely to have intercourse at least 10 times in the last month than unmarried women and divorced/separated women (9.88% vs. 54.15% vs. 38.91%; p 0.0001). The higher the educational status, the greater sexual activity was in the last month (p 0.01). Women with at least a college education were more likely to be sexually active in the last month than those with no education (98.86% vs. 83.46%; p 0.0001). As the years of marriage increased, the mean coital frequency decreased (7.8 for 1 year, 6.9 for 5 years, 6.4 for 11-15 years, 3.7 for 26 or more years; p 0.001). Oral contraceptive users were more likely to have sexual intercourse often than women using no or other family planning methods (9.4 vs. 5.8-7.3 acts/month; p 0.0001). When researchers controlled for confounding variables, age was the most significant predictor of frequency of sexual intercourse (regression coefficient for age 35-49 = -1.5808; odds ratio = 0.21; p 0.0001).