Youth who acquired SRH knowledge from media were more likely to engage in sexual intercourse and experience early sexual debut, while youth gaining SRH knowledge from school were less likely to have sexual intercourse and early debut, with sexual knowledge scores serving as a mediator in these associations.
Boys and girls in China access sexual and reproductive health knowledge from different sources.
Youth who acquired SRH knowledge from media were more likely to engage in sexual intercourse and experience early sexual debut.
Youth who acquired SRH knowledge from school were less likely to have sexual intercourse and less likely to experience early sexual debut.
Sexual knowledge acquisition among Chinese youth occurs across multiple settings rather than in a single setting.
China's rapid socioeconomic transition has been accompanied by changing sexual behaviours among youth in the context of limited formal sexuality education rooted in Confucian traditions.
This research suggests that where young people in China learn about sex and reproduction matters significantly for their sexual behaviour. In a large survey of over 52,000 Chinese youth conducted in 2019–2020, researchers found clear differences by gender in how young people access sexual knowledge: boys were more likely to learn from media (mainly pornography), while girls more commonly learned from school lessons and conversations with parents. The researchers used statistical methods called mediation analyses to understand how these different information sources relate to sexual behaviour, finding that the level of sexual knowledge a young person has partly explains the link between their information source and their behaviour. The study found that young people who got their sexual health information primarily from media were more likely to have had sex and more likely to have started sexual activity at an earlier age. In contrast, those who learned about sexual health at school were less likely to have had sex and less likely to have started early. This suggests that not all sources of sexual information have the same effect on young people's choices and behaviours — the quality and nature of the source appears to matter. This research suggests that effective sexuality education programs in China need to account for the full range of places where young people are already learning about sex, rather than focusing only on school-based curricula. Because young people gather information from many settings simultaneously — including media, school, and family — improving sexual and reproductive health outcomes may require coordinated efforts across all these channels. The findings are particularly relevant given China's cultural context of traditionally limited formal sex education, and they highlight the potential risks when media, especially pornography, becomes a primary source of sexual knowledge for young people.
Zou X, Xue K, Zou S, Xiao A, Cao W, Tang K. (2025). Association between Chinese youth's sources of sexual knowledge and sexual and reproductive health: a mediation analysis of sexual knowledge level.. Sexual and reproductive health matters. https://doi.org/10.1080/26410397.2025.2517430