Vietnamese Aging and Marital Sexual Behavior in Comparative Perspective

Abstract

This study examines marital sexual activity in relation to age and its significance for marital relationships in Vietnam with particular attention to older persons. Results are compared with Thailand and the US. Two regional surveys provide the first quantitative assessment of marital sex in Vietnam. As elsewhere, marital sexual activity declines with age. At older ages, substantial proportions of married Vietnamese are sexually inactive. Levels of activity among older Vietnamese and Thais are remarkably similar and substantially lower than in the US. Contrary to US studies, the frequency of sexual activity shows little relationship to marital satisfaction and harmony in Vietnam. Possible explanations for these differences are discussed in terms of biases in the data, differences in health and living arrangements, and societal, cultural and normative contexts. We speculate that a main reason underlying the differences is a lesser societal emphasis on sex in general and on the importance of sexual and physical intimacy in marital relationships in Vietnam and Thailand than in the US.

Keywords:

• Vietnam
• Thailand
• marital sex
• marital satisfaction, aging
• coital frequency

We thank the American Association for Retired Persons (AARP) and especially Xenia Montenegro, Linda Fisher, and Hana Holley from their staff for generously providing the data for the 2004 AARP survey and patiently answering questions about the survey. Stuart Michaels kindly provided information on the National Health and Social Life Survey. This research is supported by grants to the Population Studies Center, University of Michigan from the Fogarty International Center (2 D43 TW00657-06) and from the National Institute on Aging (as a supplement to P30 AG012846, ‘Michigan Center on the Demography of Aging’).

Notes

1. The study covered 29 countries. In the Asian countries outside Japan that were covered, only major cities were included and market research techniques, including ‘intercept’ sampling, were employed. Response rates were generally quite low, averaging only 19 percent. Thus the data have an obvious bias toward urban participants willing to talk about sex and are not representative of the broader populations.

2. To minimize inclusion of childless marriages, which are of less interest to the main purpose of the survey, the sample was also restricted to couples in which the wife was under age 40 at the time of marriage.

3. In general, reported sexual activity according to each of the three measures tends be modestly higher in the northern than in the southern sample. However, the relationship of sexual activity with age is reasonably consistent between the two surveys.

4. Because small numbers in the sample at the oldest end of the age range covered in Figure 1, results for women are terminated at age 67+ and for men at 70+.

5. Based on self-reported data, among persons 50 and older, the odds ratio for women relative to men of having had intercourse during the prior month controlling only for age is 0.506 (p-value .000) but when age difference between spouses is added to the regression, the odds ratio increases to 1.054 (p-value .781); likewise the odds ratio for women relative to men of being sexually inactive during the prior year controlling only for age is 2.134 (p-value .000) but when age difference between spouses is added to the regression, the odd ratio decreases to 0.968 (p-value .881).

6. Results from the 1988 NSFH had to be estimated from graphical presentations since numerical values were not included in the article from which they came.

7. This measure is used because coital frequency among those who were active is unavailable for the 2002 US study. Thus, the results for Vietnam in Figure 4B differ from those in Figure 2.