The Data is Clear: People Are Having Less Sex

And it's not just the youths!

There was a bit of kerfuffle on the internet back in August surrounding a piece published with the title “Failure to Launch: Why Young People are Having Less Sex.” Using a survey of Californians aged 18-30, the percentage reporting no sexual partners in the prior year reached an all-time high of 38%.

Here’s an even more eye-raising statistic: in 2021, among that same age group, just 9% of women reported having at least 2 sexual partners. It was 12% of younger men. The widespread belief that these young adults are having a ton of casual sex is demonstrably false. The common perception of 'sexually promiscuous' likely doesn't align with a 25-year-old having only two sexual partners in a year, I'd guess.

But, let me expand the scope of the inquiry even further. It's not just young people having less sex; this trend spans virtually all adult age groups. People are having less sex.

Here’s how I came to that revelation: it started with the graph below. I had already written the code to do the analysis in prior waves of the General Social Survey and wanted to update the results from the last two years of the GSS.

If there’s anything that should jump out to you it’s simply this - sexual behavior has declined significantly since the late 1980s. For instance, 75% of all evangelicals reported having sex at least once a month in 1989. In 2022, that number had dropped to 60%. For mainline Protestants, the decline was even bigger (75% to 51%). The share was also down for the non-religious. 79% of them were having monthly sex in 1989. In 2022, that share hit an all-time low of 65%.

I do need to point out that Black Protestants are having as much sex as they ever have, though. In fact, they were having sex the most of any religious group in 2022. Catholics reported a noticeable decline from 1989 through 2021, but then the numbers rebounded big time to 70% in 2022.

But, those declines really got me thinking. About half of mainline Protestants did not have sex once a month in 2022. What in the world could be causing that? Oh yeah - it’s the fact that they are really old. I wrote about that a while ago.

This suggests that the changes may not be related to religion at all. One possible explanation is that as people age, sexual activity may become less frequent, particularly as they approach the eligibility age for Social Security benefits. So, let’s just check that out.

Here’s what I did. I pulled together data from the late 1980s and early 1990s and then combined the last couple of waves of the GSS (2016-2022) and then used the same metric- the share having sex at least once a month. But I wanted to compare people of the same age in each time period in the survey. The results are pretty breathtaking.

Each age group today reports lower frequencies of sexual activity compared to their counterparts from previous decades. In the early 1990s, more than 80% of individuals around the age of 25 reported engaging in sexual activity at least once a month. Recently, this figure has dropped to 72% among those in their mid twenties.

This eight-percentage-point decline is remarkably consistent across all age groups compared. It is evident that the peak period for regular sexual activity occurs between the ages of 30 and 40. In the late 1990s, about 90% of folks said that was the case. In the most recent data, it’s much closer to 80%. The gap does narrow a bit for folks between 40 and 50 years old, but then it opens back up again when looking at those who are between 50 and 65 years of age.

The decline in sexual activity is not confined to younger individuals; it is also observed among those in their 40s, 50s, and 60s.

Okay, now that I have made it clear that age is probably playing a role in that first graph, let’s just restrict the sample to those between the ages of 25 and 50. That’s when sexual activity seems to be the most frequent.

Okay - the gaps do seem to narrow a bit here. We aren’t seeing that 15 or 20 point decline from 1989 to 2022. But, the gaps still persist for every religious group. An evangelical between the ages of 25 and 50 is six points less likely to have sex once a month compared to the same age group three decades ago. For some groups the gap is small (two points for Black Protestants and three points for mainline). But for Catholics, the gap is nine points and it’s seven points for those with no religious affiliation. There’s no group here that is clearly having more sex today than their counterparts from the early 1990s.

Let me test this same set up with religious attendance, though. Again - just 25 to 50 year olds.

Okay, the same pattern is clear here. Everyone is having less sex today than they did around 1990. The declines are fairly consistent, too. The gap is never smaller than six points but never larger than eight points. But, pastors, I have a stat for you for your next sermon about sex! Among 25-50 year olds, the frequency of sex among those who never attend religious services is the same as those who are in your pews every week - 79% are having sexual relations at least once a month.

But, I know what some of you aspiring social scientists are thinking right now. But, Ryan, this is probably due (at least in part) to the decline of marriage in the general public. Folks just aren’t walking down the aisle at nearly the same rate as they used to and that’s the root of the problem. If I just compared married couples in the earlier time period to married couples in the last few years, that would close this gap.

Nope. It does not. The left panel clearly refutes the idea that reduced sexual activity is simply a result of declining marriage rates. Comparing currently married respondents from thirty years ago to recent years reveals a decline in sexual activity even among married couples.

Now, let’s be clear - the gap is not huge. Among thirty year olds, it’s about four percentage points and it stays that way until you get to comparing those who are at least fifty years old. But, married couples are even having less sex today than married folks during the George HW Bush administration.

The right panel, representing unmarried individuals, doesn't provide a clear narrative. Among young unmarried folks, it does look like sexual behavior has dropped off some when comparing the two time periods. But then among those who are between the ages of 40 and 55 years old, the data says that sexual frequency is actually higher in recent years than it was in the early 1990s. I think it’s fair to call that a wash. Unmarried folks are probably having sex at about the same rate today as they were a few decades ago.

I guess we are pondering the same thing right now. Why are folks having sex less today than they were in the 1990s? I mean, I don’t think it takes too much imagination to conjure the most likely suspect - smartphones. I think we can all admit that sexual behavior is somewhat related to boredom. When you have something to entertain yourself, then sex may not be top of mind.

I am reminded of Neil Postman’s masterpiece Amusing Ourselves to Death. Postman’s thesis is simple - Huxley’s Brave New World was right. Our addiction to amusement is what will lead to the decline of civilization. For some, farming clicks and shares on social media gives us a dopamine hit that supplants the feelings derived from sexual contact. And, I have to admit, that is a really bleak thought.

I am reminded of one of the finest films of the last two decades - Children of Men. It’s set in the not too distant dystopian future in which women have not been able to become pregnant for eighteen years. Folks are listless and hopeless. There’s no one to pass their legacy on to. All the schools have closed. There will be no next generation. Who would have thought that Mark Zuckerberg building an app to try and meet girls would eventually be one of the causes of declining fertility. But, here we are.

Code for this post can be found here.