Changing family formation in Nepal: marriage, cohabitation and first sexual intercourse

Marcantonio Caltabiano, University of Padua
Maria Castiglioni, Università di Padova

We will study changes of marital and sexual behaviours of Nepalese male and female cohorts born in 1942-1986, using 2001 DHS data, where age at marriage, cohabitation and first sexual intercourse have been collected. This last parameter has been rarely collected in Asia. The main hypotheses are: The interval between marriage and first intercourse for females is decreasing; Proportions of men and women who experience their first intercourse before cohabitation are increasing; Modernization of behaviours is quickened among people more exposed to social changes. We will describe changes of the sequences “marriage – cohabitation – first intercourse”, considering also duration of permanence in each status, events order, and synchronizations. Event history techniques will be used to study the interrelated processes of first cohabitation and first intercourse, with marital status as a covariate. As individual data are collected for married people, the selection process will be controlled following the Heckman approach.