Sex ed: A gift that keeps on giving

Stay in school, kids! A new study from the Guttmacher Institute shows that men and women who got formal sex education in school had long-term benefits in terms of their birth control use and relationships. It’s not news that sex ed has positive results, but this was the first study to look at long-term benefits in people up to age 24—it also used newer data than previous studies on the effects of sex ed.

Specifically, people with formal sex ed were 70-90% more likely to use condoms or other birth control the first time they had sex compared to those who got no sex ed. People who got sex ed were less likely to have a partner 3 or more years different in age and were a little older the first time they had sex. Women who got sex ed that included information about birth control were also 60% less likely to report having unwanted sex compared to women who got no sex ed.