Table 4 presents a different perspective on marriage trends, by using the proportions who are married by ages 15, 18 and 20 and comparing women aged 40-44  with women aged 20-24 at the time of survey.  This table reveals that in several countries in Asia there is a clear tendency towards a decline in the proportions married by ages 15, 18 and 20 between  the older cohort of women aged 40-44 and the younger cohort of women aged 20-24.  It is only in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan that there has been a notable increase in the proportions married by ages 15, 18 and 20 between the older and younger cohort of women.  In the Lao People's Democratic Republic, Uzbekistan and Viet Nam, the proportions married have remained almost unchanged.

              It is, however, to be noted that  despite the decline in the proportions married by ages 15, 18 and 20 over time, some countries currently exhibit a high incidence of marriage during adolescence.  In Bangladesh, for instance, 47 per cent of women aged 20-24 were married by age 15, and 69 per cent and 77 per cent of these women were married by ages 18 and 20, respectively.  A similar high rate of adolescent marriage is observed in India and Nepal.  Among women aged 20-24, over 70 per cent of women in these countries were married by age 20, and over half the women were married by age 18.  Similarly, 26 per cent of women in India and 19 per cent of women in Nepal in the age group 20-24 were already married by age 15.       

            The above data available from Asia tend to suggest that the proportion married by age 18 has clearly declined between women in the older cohort and women in the younger cohort.  The pattern across cohorts in the proportion who first had sex by age 18 is somewhat different from the marriage pattern. Studies from developing countries demonstrate that in about half of the 17 countries in sub-Saharan Africa and 5 out of 8 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, the proportion of women who reported having sex by age 18 either increased or remained the same among 20 to 24-year-old women by comparison with 40 to 44-year-old women (Blanc and Way, 1998).    These data tend to suggest that in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean, the proportion of women who had sex during adolescence has not decreased to the same extent as the proportion of women who were married during adolescence, supporting the hypothesis that the fall in age in menarche and the rise in age at marriage would result in an increase in premarital sex. 

   
In sub-Saharan Africa, the incidence of premarital sex is clearly evident from figure 3, which shows that sexual experience precedes marriage in nearly every country surveyed.  In those countries, the proportion of young women who first had sexual intercourse by age 18 is much higher than those women who were married by this age (Population Reference Bureau, 2001).  By contrast, available data suggest that premarital sex is less common in the Asian and Pacific region.  According to the demographic and health surveys carried out in Asia, in six out of nine countries the proportion of women aged 20-24 who had sex by age 18 is either lower or equal to the proportion of women who were married by this age (figure 4).  In the Lao People's Democratic Republic and Kyrgyzstan, the proportion of women aged 20-24 who had sex by age 18 is marginally higher than those women who were married by this age, while in Kazakhstan the proportion of women aged 20-24 who had sex by age 18 is substantially higher than those women who were married by this age (25.5 per cent versus 14.7 per cent).
  

Figure 3.  Women aged 20-24 who had sexual intercourse and/or who married by age 18, sub-Saharan Africa

Figure 4.  Women aged 20-24 who had sexual intercourse and/or who married by age 18, by country and year of survey

Survey data indicated that the incidence of premarital sex is less common among women in Asia.  These surveys also showed that, excepting Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and the Lao People's Democratic Republic, there has been a decline in the proportion of women who had had sex by age 18 (table 5).  For instance, in Nepal about 60 per cent of women aged  20-24 reported having had sex by age 18 as compared with over three quarters of women (76.5 per cent) aged 40-44.   By contrast, in Kazakhstan the percentage of women who had had sex by age 18 is markedly higher (25.5 per cent) among younger women 20-24 than among older women aged 40-44 (9.1 per cent).

Although national-level surveys tend to suggest that premarital sex is less common in Asia, more focused in depth studies on adolescent sexual and reproductive health undertaken in some countries of Asia have revealed that it is clearly on the rise.   In India, although traditional norms oppose premarital sex, some studies indicate a growing trend towards premarital sexual activities among adolescents (Sharma, 2000).  Limited information from Bangladesh revealed a very high incidence of premarital sex: 61 per cent of males as compared with 24 per cent of females had had premarital sexual activity among adolescents, and this percentage was much higher in urban than in rural areas (Uddin, 1999).  Results from a 1991 study conducted in nine districts of Nepal also found that 20 per cent of young people were engaged in premarital sex (Rai, 2001).

In the case of Myanmar, it has been traditionally believed that unmarried people are not sexually active; however, many people acknowledged that unmarried people are engaged in premarital sex (Htay and others, 2000).  In the Lao People's Democratic Republic, a study among community members revealed that sex and pregnancy before marriage are common and more or less accepted because of the common belief that pregnancy outside marriage leads to marriage (Sananikhom and others, 2000).  Similar findings were revealed by the series of country case studies on sexual and reproductive health carried out by the UNESCO Regional Clearing House on Population Education and Communication, Bangkok (see box 1).

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