Cross-National Variation in Attitudes to Premarital Sex: Economic Development, Disease Risk, and Mar...

<jats:p> Sexual behavior responds adaptively to local costs and benefits. It was thus predicted that acceptance of premarital sex would increase with economic development (gross domestic product [GDP]), female labor participation, and births outside wedlock but would decline with marriage strength (marriage rate minus divorce rate), HIV/AIDS incidence, infectious disease risk, and religiosity. Pew Research data on attitudes to premarital sex in 40 countries supported these predictions in correlational analysis (exception HIV/AIDS). Regression analyses found significant effects of GDP, marriage strength, religiosity, and births outside wedlock while women at work was marginally significant (with 82 % of the variance explained). Acceptance of premarital sex increases adaptively with economic development, and declining marriage strength and religiosity, but is not consistently affected by disease risks. Differences in cross-national predictors of premarital sex and casual sex are discussed. </jats:p>