Estimating the structure by age and sex of the US sexually active population

ABSTRACT

A model combines demographic data provided by the United States Census Bureau for 2021 with survey data on sexual activity from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to estimate the structure by age and sex of the sexually active population in the United States. It also provides the proportions of newly sexually active people by age and sex. The model is based on percentages of sexually active people by age and sex, and on an ordinary differential equation formalizing a “learning process” for the years 2009 to 2019. The data produced fit well with the empirical data for each age and sex.

KEYWORDS:

• Age and sex structure
• newly sexually active
• ordinary differential equations
• population model
• sexually active

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• C63

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ www.census.gov/topics/population/age-and-sex/data/tables.html.

² www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/popest/datasets/2020-2022/national/asrh/nc-est2022-agesex-res.csv.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the National Science Foundation [DMS 2150492]; Office of the Dean of The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Arizona State University.