Neighborhood Structure, Social Organization, and Number of Short-Term Sexual Partnerships

We examine the relationship between neighborhood structural characteristics, social organization, and the sexual partnering practices of adults. Analyses of 1990 census and 1995-1997 survey-based data on Chicago neighborhoods and adult sexual activity reveal for men a number of neighborhood influences on sexual partnering practices. First, residential stability is negatively associated with having a short-term sexual partner in the last year. Second, neighborhood social ties are positively associated with short-term sexual partnering in neighborhoods with low levels of collective efficacy-the combination of cohesion and shared expectations for beneficial action among neighbors-but this effect is substantially reduced as collective efficacy increases. Moreover, neighborhood collective efficacy and social ties mediate the effect of residential stability on sexual partnering practices. Neighborhood characteristics were not associated with short-term sexual partnering for women. Key Words: collective efficacy, neighborhood effects, sexual behavior. The past two decades have witnessed dramatic growth in research examining the consequences of neighborhood characteristics for individual outcomes. This research has been stimulated, in part, by the increasingly widespread recognition that behavioral patterns vary significantly by geographic context (Sampson, Morenoff, & Gannon-Rowley, 2002). One important current of neighborhood research has focused on the association between structural characteristics of urban neighborhoods and patterns of sexual and union formation behavior, including the timing of first intercourse (Brewster, Billy, & Grady, 1993); premarital birth (Billy & Moore, 1992; South & Crowder, 1999); and marriage (South & Crowder, 2000). We extend this research by elaborating and testing hypotheses regarding the role of neighborhood structure and social organization (Laumann, Gagnon, Michaels, & Michaels, 1994; Sampson, Raudenbush, & Earls, 1997) in influencing patterns of sexual partnering among adults. We suggest that neighborhoods vary in the extent to which they both offer opportunities for, and constrain, sexual interaction. For instance, neighborhoods characterized by high levels of sociability, informal exchange, and frequent interaction may enhance the likelihood of sexual interaction in comparison with neighborhoods where ties among residents are weak. Yet neighborhoods may also limit the degree to which opportunities for sexual interaction are realized. First, structural advantages, including the relative absence of poverty and residential instability, may enhance the informal social control capacities of urban neighborhoods, promoting their ability to monitor certain types of normatively proscribed behavior such as prostitution and forced sexual experiences. Second, communities characterized by relatively high levels of social control may also influence patterns of sexual partnering that are not normatively proscribed or are at least contested at the community level. Specifically, we argue that short-term and multiple sexual partnering may be limited as a byproduct of the emergence of stable "stakeholder" networks in communities that increase the social costs of turnover in sexual partnerships (Laumann et al, 1994). To date, few studies have examined the influence of community characteristics on adult sexual practices, and none have considered the impact of social control and sociability within neighborhoods. The relative neglect of community influences on adult sexual partnering practices may stem, in part, from the paucity of adequate data sources with which to explore this association. This research employs three independent data sources-the 1990 Decennial Census, the 1994-1995 Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods Community Survey, and the 1995-1997 Chicago Health and Social Life Survey. These data sets bring some of the richest information available on the sexual partnering practices and life histories of urban adults together with data collected specifically to explore the dimensions of community-level social organization. …