The experience of sexual intercourse for the first time is a significant life event, and influenced by a range of individual, cultural and societal factors. Age of first sexual initiation is a major area of policy and research focus, as the circumstances of first sex (e.g. whether contraception...

Adolescence and young adulthood are critical periods in the development of healthy sexual health and relationships, as patterns of behaviour that develop during these life stages shape outcomes throughout the life course. Recent rises in notifications of certain sexually transmitted infections...

Using a large-scale incentivized trust game experiment conducted across all 27 EU member states, we find that sexual minorities exhibit greater prosocial behaviour toward another vulnerable group but not toward an unknown counterpart, compared to heterosexual individuals. The observed effects...

We propose a unified economic model of sexual exchanges that treats both unpaid and paid sex as outcomes of individual time allocation decisions. Departing from existing literature that separates sex into marital relations or specialized markets, the model incorporates relational skills, gender...

We develop a rational choice model of sexual exchange that unifies marriage and paid sex, explaining two key facts: the gendered segregation of sex markets and the decline in sexual activity and fertility. Individuals choose whether to engage in paid or unpaid sex based on income, human capital,...