READING, WRITING, AND SEX: THE EFFECT OF LOSING VIRGINITY ON ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE

I. INTRODUCTION While much of the policy discussion surrounding efforts to induce teenagers to delay first intercourse tend to focus on the potential health benefits of abstinence, increasing attention has been paid to possible spillover effects. In particular, some proponents of abstinence claim that delaying intercourse can enhance self-control, encourage greater future orientedness, and facilitate human capital accumulation. For example, the Family Research Council, a conservative domestic policy advocacy organization, has argued that maintaining an abstinent lifestyle can facilitate the development of character traits that enhance human capital: Abstinence-until-marriage builds character and self-control. Unlike slapping on a condom, self control must be cultivated over time. It is not a technique to master but a deeply rooted prize to nurture. When properly developed, it will help teens become adults that are effective long-range planners.... Just as self-control in the sexual arena benefits other areas of life, likewise the practice of immediate gratification of sexual urges encourages impulsiveness in many areas of life. (Diggs 2002) While several studies have carefully examined the effect of teenage childbearing on schooling and labor market outcomes (see, e.g., Angrist and Evans 1996; Bronars and Grogger 1994; Hoffman, Foster, and Furstenberg 1993; Hotz, McElroy, and Sanders 2005; Hotz, Mullin, and Sanders 1997; Klepinger, Lundberg, and Plotnick 1999; Rosenzweig and Wolpin 1995), fewer have explored whether becoming sexually active adversely affects early human capital accumulation. Those studies that have examined whether there are negative educational spillovers of engaging in sex at an early age have not adequately controlled for unmeasured characteristics associated with both sex decisions and academic performance (Billy et al. 1988; Brooke et al. 1994; Costa et al. 1995; Dorius, Heaton, and Steffen 1993; Jessor et al. 1983; Meilman 1993; Mott and Marsiglio 1985; Rector and Johnson 2005; Schvaneveldt et al. 2001; Upchurch and McCarthy 1990). The central contribution of this study will be to provide more credible estimates of the causal effect of becoming sexually active on adolescent academic performance by exploiting information on the timing of intercourse decisions, which will permit the estimation of individual fixed-effects models. One might expect a negative relationship between losing virginity and academic performance for several reasons. Becoming sexually active might cause a decline in academic performance because adolescent sex may psychologically distress or emotionally distract teenagers, causing them to pay less attention to coursework. However, the direction of causality may run in the opposite direction. Poor academic performance may cause adolescents to become sexually active. Teenagers may become disillusioned or depressed due to receiving low grades and may psychologically compensate for their feelings of academic inadequacy by seeking fulfillment in sex. Or, it may be that there is no causal link between early teen sex and academic performance but rather an association due to unmeasured heterogeneity. If the least academically motivated or least able adolescents choose to engage in sexual intercourse, and this motivation level is unmeasured, ordinary least squares (OLS) estimates will be biased toward negative academic consequences of becoming sexually active. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), this study carefully examines the relationship between becoming sexually active and academic performance. Controlling for a wide set of individual- and family-level observables, OLS estimates consistently show that nonvirgins have grade point averages (GPAs) that are approximately 0.2 points lower than virgins. For adolescent females, the negative relationship disappears after including individual fixed effects, suggesting little evidence of a causal link. …