The setting for this study is Metro Cebu. Quantitative
data are derived from the Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Surveys (CLHNS), an ongoing longitudinal study of a cohort of
mothers and their index children born in 1983–1984. Focus group discussions (FGDs) and in-depth interviews
(IDIs) were used to explore the multiple systems that influence the lives of
the young people in the study.
Here are the salient points of the study:
- · Study participants indicated that in the case of pregnancy, the consequences are more severe for a woman and her family. A young woman will often stop her studies and cease working once she discovers she is pregnant, when the pregnancy becomes evident or when she is physically unable.
- · For women, the decision to get married was dependent on her parents, but was even more dependent on her partner. Given that most partnerships were precipitated by a pregnancy, women and their families were portrayed as essentially powerless, left to the whims of the male partner to decide whether or not to accept responsibility for the woman and the pregnancy.
- · There is significant discordance between the predominant norms regarding young people’s lives and the reality. Despite persistent disapproval of premarital sex, even among younger generations, the majority of respondents (64% of males and 44% of females) in our sample reported that they had sex before entering in to a formal partnership, either cohabitation or marriage.
- · Religiosity and educational attainment appeared to influence women’s life event patterns, yet this was not the case for young men.
- · Urban men and men from wealthier households were more likely to engage in sex before a partnership. This effect remained after controlling for education, indicating that there may be factors associated with living in these environments that may make sex more attainable for these young men.
- · For both young men and young women, there were strong effects of risk behaviors on partnership patterns.
- · For young men, urban residence and engaging in risk behaviors had a synergistic, interactive effect, indicating that these two factors placed young men at an even greater risk of sex before partnership.
- · Formal courtship and the emphasis on meeting one another’s parents have shifted to more informal and casual encounters and through outings with friends. Although these practices are not risky in and of themselves, parents’ lack of knowledge or acceptance of these changing norms may create a situation in which young people surreptitiously frequent these locales to fit in with peers or may rebel against parents who are perceived to be too strict.
- · Alcohol was mentioned in several contexts, among both married and unmarried respondents, and often precipitated sudden and unprotected sexual encounters, exposing young people to unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections.
- · Among young people who had sex before the 2005 survey, the majority (52%) said that their first sexual experience was something they either ‘did not want to happen’ (12%) or ‘did not plan to happen’ (40%), another 3% reported that their first sexual experience happened ‘against their will’. Similarly large proportions of coerced first sex have been reported in national data from the Philippines, with the highest rates among younger women (Natividad and Marquez 2004).
*Because this seems to be a long post compared to the usual length of my blog entries, I highlighted in bold letters the findings that I wanted to emphasize. Para sa katulad kong tamad magbasa. **You may download the full article here.
