Determinants of Premarital sex among Unmarried Adolescents and Youths in Nepal

Using nationally representative cross sectional information drawn from Nepal Adolescent and Youth Survey 2011, this paper attempts to explore the determinants associated with premarital sex among unmarried adolescents and youths in Nepal. Two stages stratified sampling techniques was used to collect the information. Altogether 14853 adolescents and youths (7109 boys and 7644 girls) aged 10-24 from 300 cluster comprising 9000 households were selected for the interview. Both bivariate and multivariate analyses have been used to analyze the data.
Bivariate analysis reveals that age, education, mass media exposure, exposure to internet, household economic condition and other spatial factors are significantly associated with premarital sex among youths. As expected, a higher proportion of adolescents and youths having higher education, exposed to FM, Radio, TV and Internet have premarital sexual experience. However, age, education, mass media exposure are strong predictors of premarital sex among adolescents and youths after controlling the influence of other variables in multivariate analysis.
This study is conclusive that education, mass media exposure (FM, TV, Radio, Internet exposure) are the significant predictors associated with premarital sex among youths.