Parents often contemplate moves to the country to raise their children away from the big bad city. But a new survey shows that innocence is actually lost a lot earlier in rural America.
The CDC released the findings from the National Survey of Family Growth this month, a survey given to 10,000 U.S. women ages 18-44 between 2011 to 2015.
The survey found several differences in sexual activity between women who live in rural areas and those who live in urban settings.
The CDC released the findings of a survey this month, showing the differences in sexual activity between rural and urban women. The survey found that women start having sex at a younger age in rural areas than in city areas
Women start having sex at a younger age and go on to have more kids than their city counterparts as well
The most shocking finding was that rural females start having sex at a younger age than those in the city, despite the commonly held notion that rural America is more religious, and perhaps less accepting of pre-marital sex.
According to the survey, rural women start having sex at 16.6 years old, while women in cities lose their virginity at the average age of 17.4.
By age 18, 80 per cent of women living in the country are having sex compared to just 68.6 per cent of women in cities.
The survey also found a difference in how many children women have, depending on whether they live in rural or urban communities.
The study found no significant difference when it came to how many women were living with husbands or significant others
When it came to birth control, the survey found that rural women were more likely to use more effective forms of birth control than city women
There are more women in the city who don’t have children (41.6 per cent), than childless women in the country (30.3).
Meanwhile, a larger percent of rural women (24.8 per cent) have three or more children while just 19 per cent of urban women do
Another way city and country women differed was in their use of birth control methods.
Despite having more children than city women, rural women use the most effective methods of birth control (sterilization, an IUD or contraceptive implant) at higher rates than city women.
More than 40 per cent of rural women use the most effective forms of birth control compared to 30.4 per cent of urban women.
Another 25.4 per cent of urban women rely on less effective methods like condoms and withdrawal.
While the survey found a lot of differences between rural and city women, it did find one commonality.
Both kinds of women were just as likely to live with heterosexual partners, be it married or unmarried.