Demographic and Health Surveys Methodology - Measure DHS

SEXUAL INTERCOURSEAGE AT FIRST SEXUAL INTERCOURSEStatistics: Percent Distribution, by Years of Age at First Sexual Intercourse, Total, andAccording to Current Age GroupDefinitionPercents of women who first had sexual intercourse before attaining the specified ages.A. Coverage: Women of all marital statuses.B. Numerator: Number of women who had their first sexual intercourse before they attained thespecified age group.C. Denominator: Total number of women, including those who never had sexual intercourse.CalculationA. Age at first sexual intercourse: Reported by woman as age in completed years or when she beganliving with first husband or consensual partner. The latter response has been converted to age incompleted years in the DHS standard recode.B. Numerators: Number of women below specified age categories. Women who have never hadsexual intercourse are included in a separate category.C. Denominator is the number of women of all marital statuses. Ever-married samples denominatorsare adjusted by the all women factors. However, see note below.D. Numerators for each age group category are divided by the same denominator and multiplied by100 to obtain percentages.Handling of Missing ValuesWomen with unknown and missing ages at first sexual intercourse are excluded from both thedenominator and the numerators.Notes and ConsiderationsPercentages add up to 100 percent.Percents are not calculated for the age at first sexual intercourse categories by cohorts of women wherethe youngest member of the cohort has not yet completed the oldest age of the category. (For example,percents for the cohort of women 20–24 at the time of the survey will not be calculated for age groupcategories 20–21, 22–24, and 25+ because some women who have never had intercourse are still in orbelow those age ranges and could still have their first intercourse within the age group categories).In most of the ever-married DHS surveys, age at first sexual intercourse was not asked. In the other evermarriedsurveys, never-married women are assumed not to have had sexual intercourse.Guide to DHS Statistics 71 Updated September 2006