Background: In 2013, 47% of U.S. high school students had ever had sexual intercourse, and the live birth rate was 26.5 per 1,000 women aged 15-19 years. Early sexual activity among youth also increases the risk of contracting sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Young people between the ages of 15 to 24 made up nearly half of the 20 million new STIs each year.

Research purpose: To inform sexuality education programs by examining the average number of reasons youth report for abstaining from sexual intercourse, what those reasons are, differences across demographic characteristics, and associations between demographic characteristics, protective factors and the various reasons for why youth abstain from sex.

Methods: Data came from the 2013 Minnesota Student Survey (MSS). Analytical sample (N=69,886) is comprised of 9th and 11th grade students who answered the two primary questions of interest “Have you ever had sexual intercourse (“had sex”)?” and if not, “If you don’t have sexual intercourse, what factors influence your choice not to have sexual intercourse?” Youth who had not had sexual intercourse reported their reason(s) for abstain. Reasons to have abstained from sex were categorized into seven categories: (1) don’t want to have sex; (2) lack of opportunity; (3) fear of outcomes; (4) friend and family values/norms; (5) personal values; (6) learned from home/school; and (7) other reason(s) than assessed. Bivariate analyses included chi-square test of association for differences in demographic characteristics and protective factors across each of the seven types of reasons for being abstinent from sexual intercourse.

Results: Females report more reasons to abstain from sex than males, such as ‘personal values’, ‘fear of outcomes’, and ‘don’t want to have sex’ while the top reasons males report abstinence are ‘lack of opportunity’ and ‘personal reasons’. Youth who were least likely to report ‘lack of opportunity’ as a reason to have abstained from sex were likely to identify as American Indian, Black, African or African American, or Asian, a member of the Hispanic, Somali, or Hmong cultural group, or are home alone or unsupervised 3-5 days per week after school. Our study confirmed that living with two biological parents, family connectedness, and engaging in less than five hours of screen time per day outside of school were protective factors associated with higher rates of students reporting ‘family and friends values/norms’, ‘personal values’, and ‘learned from home/school’ as reasons to abstain from sex.

Conclusion: Youth abstain from sexual intercourse for various reasons. Sexuality education must take a multifaceted approach by involving community and family to strengthen youths’ reasons for abstaining from sex and ultimately delaying early sexual initiation and reducing the possibility for an unintended pregnancy or STI. Identifying protective factors will assist educators and families in providing a space for healthy youth development of the adolescents in their lives.