Hannah Brückner

Promising the future : Virginity pledges and first intercourse

Since 1993, in response to a movement sponsored by the Southern Baptist Church, over 2.5 million adolescents have taken public “virginity” pledges, in which they promise to abstain from sex until marriage. This paper explores the effect of those pledges on the transition to first intercourse. Adolescents who pledge are much less likely to have intercourse than adolescents who do not pledge. The delay effect is substantial. On the other hand, the pledge does not work for adolescents at all ages. Second, pledging delays intercourse only in contexts where there are some, but not too many, pledgers. The pledge works because it is embedded in an identity movement. Consequently, the pledge identity is meaningful only in contexts where it is at least partially nonnormative. Consequences of pledging are explored for those who break their promise. Promise breakers are less likely than others to use contraception at first intercourse.

De-Standardization of the Life Course: What it Might Mean? And if it Means Anything, Whether it Actually Took Place?

Abstract We explore both conceptually and empirically whether and how precise meanings and measures can be attached to recent ideas about the transformation of the life course. With data from the German Life History Study (GLHS), we assess social change in the transition to adulthood for birth cohorts born between 1921 and 1971, focusing on the de-standardization hypothesis. While we see increasing de-coupling of events in the connections between the school–training–work nexus and family formation, the institutional environment continues to structure the school–training–work nexus and not much change was seen in the way in which cohort members undergo these transitions. On the contrary, there is actually a homogenization as womens and mens life courses converge in terms of education and labor force participation. It is the family formation nexus that shows the most pronounced changes. This is also the realm in which gender differences persist across cohorts. While we find strong evidence for period effects that produce inter-cohort differences in life course patterns, taken as a whole our indicators do not point to a general process of a de-standardization of the life course.

Opposite-Sex Twins and Adolescent Same-Sex Attraction

The etiology of human same‐sex romantic attraction is generally framed in terms of (1) social influences, (2) genetic influences, or (3) hormonal influences. In this article, we show that adolescent males who are opposite‐sex twins are twice as likely as expected to report same‐sex attraction; and that the pattern of concordance (similarity across pairs) of same‐sex preference for sibling pairs does not suggest genetic influence independent of social context. Our data falsify the hormone transfer hypothesis by isolating a single condition that eliminates the opposite‐sex twin effect we observe—the presence of an older same‐sex sibling. We also consider and reject a speculative evolutionary theory that rests on observing birth‐order effects on same‐sex orientation. In contrast, our results support the hypothesis that less gendered socialization in early childhood and preadolescence shapes subsequent same‐sex romantic preferences.