Virtual Seminar by Dr Charles Lwanga (Makerere University)

Abstract

The aim of this paper was to estimate the waiting time to first union after sexual debut and to examine the socioeconomic correlates of the length of the gap between onset of sex initiation and the age at first union among women in Uganda. Self-reported data from the individual record file were extracted from the 2016 Uganda Demographic and Health Survey (UDHS), comprising of a subsample of 4293 women aged 15-25. Chi-square tests and the logistic regression of multivariable event history analysis were used to investigate the relationship between socioeconomic factors and the length of the gap. Descriptive findings show that the average and mean waiting time in years is about 5.6 and 5.5 respectively. Age at sexual initiation and current age of the woman were the only significant factors. Women who had their sexual debut before age 15 would take longer to transit to first union and this is perhaps attributed to serial monogamy, and having multiple and concurrent partners which leads to a failure in subsequent union formation. Women aged 20-25 had a disproportionally lower risk of transiting to first union, which is attributed to social development aspects, diverging from earlier thinking that a woman is supposed to either be one’s wife or one’s mother. In conclusion, efforts to address what might influence the length of the gap between sexual union and first union need to consider the age at sexual debut and the current age of the women.

Bionote

Dr Charles Lwanga is a senior lecturer in the Department of Population Studies, at Makerere University. His research interests and publications are in the broad areas of family studies, reproductive health, partner violence and computational demography with application of survival analytical models. He is formally trained as a statistician from Makerere University and later enrolled for graduate studies in Demography at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia (USA) and in Development Studies specializing in Population and Development from the International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University in the Hague, Netherlands. He also holds a PhD in Population Studies from North-West University in South Africa. He contributes to public policy through support to the Directorate of Population and Social Statistics, Uganda Bureau of Statistics and as a reviewer for the journal of Sexuality, Gender & Policy and Cambridge University Journal of Biosocial Science. He is currently a member of the FamiLEA project in East Africa.