I honestly think the reason why it says half of single 18-29 year olds are virgins is because it was august 2023 which means Covid was recent, and it includes 18-20 year olds and only restricts it to singles, and virgins are more likely to be single
I think the percent of people who are virgins by a certain age should be updated every 5 years.
For that graph I specifically restricted the sample to singles to see how sexually active they were. The overall rate was 30%, but this is probably an overestimate due to online panels attracting people who are less extraverted and open to experience. Of course you're right that covid could play a role too.
Honestly I thought it was because the average age difference in a couple is the guy being 2-3 years older. So you've got 18-29 year old women dating 21-32 year old guys, which is a difference that could explain a 25% difference, since the 27-29 year old women, roughly 25% of the women in that age range, would be dating men out of the survey's age range. Add to that that late 20s women are more likely to be in a relationship than younger women, and your gap is explained.
I just checked this data, and the singleness rate for men only goes down by 7% when changing the age bracket to 21-32. This combined with there being slightly more young males than females can explain a more reasonable gap like this, but it's far from explaining Pew's. While a good chunk of 27-29 women may be dating men above 29, they make up about 25% of the age bracket, and the relationship rate of 24-26 women isn't far behind.
According to census data, the unmarried gender gap in 1950 (basically equivalent to single at that time) was about 17% for 18-29s. It'd be difficult to explain how it's significantly increased since then despite narrowing age gaps.
I honestly think the reason why it says half of single 18-29 year olds are virgins is because it was august 2023 which means Covid was recent, and it includes 18-20 year olds and only restricts it to singles, and virgins are more likely to be single
I think the percent of people who are virgins by a certain age should be updated every 5 years.
For that graph I specifically restricted the sample to singles to see how sexually active they were. The overall rate was 30%, but this is probably an overestimate due to online panels attracting people who are less extraverted and open to experience. Of course you're right that covid could play a role too.
Honestly I thought it was because the average age difference in a couple is the guy being 2-3 years older. So you've got 18-29 year old women dating 21-32 year old guys, which is a difference that could explain a 25% difference, since the 27-29 year old women, roughly 25% of the women in that age range, would be dating men out of the survey's age range. Add to that that late 20s women are more likely to be in a relationship than younger women, and your gap is explained.
I just checked this data, and the singleness rate for men only goes down by 7% when changing the age bracket to 21-32. This combined with there being slightly more young males than females can explain a more reasonable gap like this, but it's far from explaining Pew's. While a good chunk of 27-29 women may be dating men above 29, they make up about 25% of the age bracket, and the relationship rate of 24-26 women isn't far behind.
According to census data, the unmarried gender gap in 1950 (basically equivalent to single at that time) was about 17% for 18-29s. It'd be difficult to explain how it's significantly increased since then despite narrowing age gaps.