A Comparative Study of the Couple in the Social Organization of Sexuality in France and the United States - Statistical Data Included

Journal of Sex Research, Feb, 2001 by John H. Gagnon, Alain Giami, Stuart Michaels, Patrick de Colomby

It is among those not living in a couple that one of the largest differences between France and the United States appears. Overall rates of monogamy during the past year are much lower than among those living in couples. However, the French rates of monogamy among those not in couples are generally about 20% higher than the comparable U.S. rates. This is true overall for both men and women not living in a couple: Over two thirds of French men (69%) compared to less than half of U.S. men (48%) report a single partner in the past year, and about 85% of French women had a single partner in the year as opposed to two thirds of U.S. women. Among men this pattern is stable and consistent in the three youngest age groupings. Among the oldest group of men, the percent reporting a single partner in the year rises to close to 85% and is basically the same in both countries. The differences between French and U.S. women not living in a couple are more concentrated among the younger age groupings. Among the 18- to 29-years-olds there is a 30% difference between French and U.S. women and a 10% difference among the 30- to 39-year-olds. After age 39, while French women not living in a couple are still more likely to report a single partner than U.S. women, the difference in rates is much smaller and no longer statistically significant.

This table, which presents the percentages for those who had one sexual partner in the past year, can also be interpreted inversely as indicating the percentage of persons who had more than one partner in the past year. That is to say, about one third of French men and over half of U.S. men who were not living in a couple had more than one partner in the past year, and one third of the U.S. women and 15% of French women not in couples had more than one partner.

In sum, differences found between these two studies in terms of numbers of sexual partners in the past year arise from differences between those who are not living in a couple. People living in France, even when they do not live in a couple, are much more likely to have had a single partner in the past year than people in this situation in the U.S. In addition, in the U.S., people not living in a couple who had at least two partners in the past year are more likely to have had three or more partners than their French equivalents.

Numbers of Partners Across the Life Course

The greater number of partners in the past year among sexually active individuals in the U.S. (as evidenced by the higher percentage reporting more than one partner) implies that they have a greater number of partners over their lifetime. In order to confirm this the median and mean number of other gender partners reported in the two surveys are presented in Table 4. In this case, all adults ages 18 to 59 are included in the calculation, including those who reported no other-gender partners.

Table 4. Number of Other-Gender Sexual Partners in Lifetime

                       Female partners        Male partners
                       reported by men      reported by women

                      France      U.S.      France      U.S.

Mean                    13.02      15.80       4.05       5.55
Standard deviation      34.97      42.34       6.95      18.42
Median                   6          7          2          3
N                    2,615      1,499      2,161      1,910