“LIKE A VIRGIN”. CORRELATES OF VIRGINITY AMONG ITALIAN UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

Manuela Stranges () and Daniele Vignoli ()
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Manuela Stranges: Department of Economics, Statistics and Finance “Giovanni Anania”, University of Calabria

No 201908, Working Papers from Università della Calabria, Dipartimento di Economia, Statistica e Finanza "Giovanni Anania" - DESF

Abstract: In this paper we describe the correlates of virginity in Italy. We use a dataset of students enrolled in bachelor programs of Economics and Statistics stemming from the SELFY survey, conducted in Italy in 2001 and 2017. Descriptive results show a reduction of students, both males and females, which are virgin at the time of the interview between 2001 and 2017. Regression analyses suggest that self-esteem and own body image, the relationship with parents (in particular the mother), and religion exert the strongest correlation with virginity. Models augmented with interaction terms between time and religion variables show that the relationship between religion and virginity has weakened over time. Our results also show that the participation in religious groups is more important than the importance attributed to religion in favouring being virgin. In all, our findings extend research on sexuality among Italian young adults and underscore the important variability that exist in the sexual experiences of students as highlighted by the salience of a multitude of individual, familial, interpersonal, and community-level factors associated with their virginity.

Keywords: virginity status; correlates; Italy; religion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J10 J13 J19 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 26 pages
Date: 2019-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur
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http://www.ecostat.unical.it/RePEc/WorkingPapers/WP08_2019.pdf First version, 2019-12 (application/pdf)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:clb:wpaper:201908

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