Working Paper: NBER ID: w24882
Authors: Adrienne Lucas; Nicholas Wilson
Abstract: The canonical consumer demand model predicts that as the price of a substitute decreases, quantity demanded for a good decreases. In the case of demand for sexual activity and availability of alternative leisure activities, popular culture expresses this prediction as “television kills your sex life.” This paper examines the association between television ownership and coital frequency using data from nearly 4 million individuals in national household surveys in 80 countries from 5 continents. The results suggest that while television may not kill your sex life, it is associated with some sex life morbidity. Under our most conservative estimate, we find that television ownership is associated with approximately a 6% reduction in the likelihood of having had sex in the past week, consistent with a small degree of substitutability between television viewing and sexual activity. Household wealth and reproductive health knowledge do not appear to be driving this association.
Keywords: television; sexual activity; coital frequency; microeconometric evidence
JEL Codes: I12; I31; J13
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Television ownership (L96) | Reduction in likelihood of having had sex in the past week (C83) |
| Owning a refrigerator (D19) | Decrease in likelihood of having had sex for women (J16) |
| Household wealth (G59) | Association with sexual activity (Y80) |
| Reproductive health knowledge (J13) | Association with sexual activity (Y80) |