Prevalence and Patterns of Extramarital Sex among Chinese Men and Women: 2000-2015

ABSTRACT

Despite growing concern about the “sexual revolution” in China in the past decades, empirical evidence regarding the national trends in prevalence and patterns of extramarital sex (EMS) remains sparse. This study aimed to fill this gap, using data from a population-based, repeated cross-sectional survey administered at four time points during the period 2000–2015. EMS was assessed by asking whether a person in marriage had engaged in sexual activity with someone else during the relationship with his/her current partner. Our findings showed that among married adults aged 20–59, the occurrence rate of EMS nearly tripled over the period 2000–2015, increasing from 12.9% to 33.4% for men, and from 4.7% to 11.4% for women. Moreover, in the early years of this century, EMS was negatively associated with older age (50–59 years), lower educational level (elementary and below) and rural residence for men, and negatively associated with older age and positively associated with higher educational level (college and above) for women. All these differences, however, disappeared in more recent years. Overall, this study indicates a marked increase in EMS, a widening gender gap in EMS, and for each gender, a convergence of EMS across various sociodemographic groups.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the Institute of Sexuality and Gender at Renmin University of China for providing the data on which this study was based. The authors also thank all the participants and interviewers involved in the survey. The original data collection has been funded by the Major National Science & Technology Specific Projects of Chinese Government (2008ZX10102) and The Ford Foundation, Beijing (1065-0331, 1070-0226). The funders had no role in the preparation and submission of this manuscript.

Notes

¹ We thank one of our reviewers for pointing out this potential implication of our findings.

² To test changes in the gender gap in EMS over time, we first specified a linear probability model to regress EMS on gender and survey year dummies, and then additionally included their interactions. Results showed that men were significantly more likely than women to engage in EMS, and the gender gap became significantly larger in 2010 and 2015, in comparison to earlier years.