Relationships and Contraceptive Behavior in a Population-Based Sample of Non-Heterosexual Young Women

• In Event: 285 - Section on Race, Gender, and Class Paper Session. Intersectionality and Methods: Multidimensional and Multilevel Race, Gender, Ethnicity, and Class Data

Abstract

The LGBT population has been largely excluded from an otherwise rich literature on relationships and contraceptive behaviors and attitudes of young women in the United States. We contribute new research to the literature on relationships and contraception in a population understudied by demographers, and our sample includes women of color and women not enrolled in college, who are often neglected in sexuality research. We draw on data from the new Relationship Dynamics and Social Life (RDSL) study, a longitudinal demographic survey of young women (aged 18 and 19) residing in a single Michigan county. Our data include detailed information about relationships and sex over a period of 30 months, as well as innovative measurement of sexuality, including separate measures for sexual behavior, attraction, and identity. We describe the relationship characteristics and contraceptive behavior of 579 women, about one-third of whom gave a non-heterosexual response to at least one of our sexuality measures. We find that non-heterosexual women are an internally heterogeneous group with respect to relationship and contraceptive outcomes, and that the salience of particular axes of sexuality varies by the outcome of interest. For instance, same-sex behavior is associated with more time spent in relationships and greater frequency of heterosexual sex within relationships, while same-sex attraction and sexual behavior are associated with contraceptive use. Non-heterosexual identity is the only axis of sexuality significantly associated with contraceptive method selection. Finally, we discuss the implications of these findings for the measurement of sexuality within demographic and other social science research.

Authors

• Elizabeth Jane Ela, University of Michigan

• Jamie Louise Budnick, University of Michigan