Socioeconomic Disadvantage, Life Course Dynamics, and Sexual Efficacy During the Transition to Adulthood

Hyungmin Cha , University of Texas at Austin

A growing literature documents the importance of socioeconomic disadvantage for inconsistent birth control use among young adult women in the U.S. I use longitudinal data from the Relationship Dynamics and Social Life (RDSL) study to examine the association between socioeconomic disadvantage and self-efficacy. I extend existing research in two ways: by accounting for life course dynamics, disentangling the effect of poverty during childhood and during young adulthood; and by accounting for the role of future life course expectations in young adult sexual efficacy. The results indicate that poverty is negatively associated with sexual efficacy, but this association depends on the timing and duration of poverty (The long arm of childhood poverty). Life course expectations of socioeconomic outcomes, however, are positively associated with sexual efficacy (The power of looking ahead). Future research should pay more attention to the life course dynamics of women’s sexual efficacy in the context of socioeconomic disadvantage.

See paper

 Presented in Session 164. Couple, Family, and Household Dynamics