WEDNESDAY, April 19, 2006 (HealthDay News) -- Equality between men and women may boost sex lives, U.S. researchers report.
A team at the University of Chicago surveyed about 27,500 people, ages 40 to 80, in 29 countries.
The study found that couples who live in Western countries and who have gender equality were most likely to report being satisfied with their sex lives. In contrast, people in countries where men have a dominant status over women -- such as East Asia and the Middle East -- reported less satisfaction with the physical and emotional quality of their sex lives.
Sexual satisfaction was highest in four countries -- Austria, the United States, Spain, and Canada -- and lowest in Japan and Taiwan. Countries such as Turkey, Egypt and Algeria ranked in the middle.
The findings from the "Global Study of Sexual Attitudes and Behaviors" appear in the April issue of the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior.
"Male-centered cultures where sexual behavior is more oriented toward procreation tend to discount the importance of sexual pleasure for women," lead author Edward Laumann, the George Herbert Meade Distinguished Service Professor in Sociology at the University of Chicago, said in a prepared statement.
But in relationships based on equality, couples are more likely to have sexual habits that meet both partners' needs, he noted.
The study findings include:
- In Western nations, two-thirds of men and women reported satisfaction with their sexual relationships and 80 percent said they were satisfied with their ability to have sex. About half of men and one third of women said sex was extremely or very important in their lives.
- In East Asian countries, about one quarter of men and women said they were satisfied with their sex lives, while two-thirds of the men and half of the women reported satisfaction with their ability to have sex. Twenty-eight percent of men and 12 percent of women said sex was important to them.
- In the Middle East, 50 percent of men and 38 percent of women said they had satisfying sex lives and about 70 percent said they were satisfied with their ability to have sex. Sixty percent of men and 37 percent of women said sex was important to them.
More information
The U.S. National Institute on Aging has more about sexuality in later life.
