Highlights

• What factors explain the link between premarital sex and divorce risk? It’s complicated. Tweet This
• Premarital sex with one partner substantially increases the odds of divorce. Tweet This

American sexual behavior is much different than it used to be. Today, most Americans think premarital sex is okay, and will have three or more sexual partners before marrying. What, if anything, does premarital sex have to do with marital stability?

This research brief shows that the relationship between divorce and the number of sexual partners women have prior to marriage is complex. I explore this relationship using data from the three most recent waves of the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) collected in 2002, 2006-2010, and 2011-2013. For women marrying since the start of the new millennium:

• Women with 10 or more partners were the most likely to divorce, but this only became true in recent years;
• Women with 3-9 partners were less likely to divorce than women with 2 partners; and,
• Women with 0-1 partners were the least likely to divorce.

Earlier research found that having multiple sex partners prior to marriage could lead to less happy marriages, and often increased the odds of divorce. But sexual attitudes and behaviors continue to change in America, and some of the strongest predictors of divorce in years gone by no longer matter https://besthookupwebsites.org/cs/russiancupid-recenze/ as much as they once did.Read More