Attitudes of Female Students towards Premarital Sex and it’s Perceived Consequences in Arba Minich University

Abstract

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to explain attitudes of female students towards premarital sex and its perceived consequences on the young generation. Methods: The Cochran’s formula was used to draw the participants from the 307(132) total populations. Meanwhile, 132 participants were identified to involve in both quantities and qualitative portions of the study. Stratified random sampling and purposive sampling techniques were used to select the firm participants in the quantitative and qualitative portion of the study respectively. After the end of data collection, SPSSA 20 new version was used to analyze data. Findings: Majority of young students were well concerned that premarital sex might lead one to get unplanned pregnancy and abortion, school dropout and withdrawal from the school.  That directly indicate that majority of young students have negative attitudes towards premarital sex.  Students perceived that the need to be civilize and modernize; peer pressure, liberal attitude towards religious thought and dogmas and; mass media and social Medias leading grounds to engage in premarital sex. In addition, there is no statistically significance difference observed among batches in their attitude towards premarital sex (F = 1.099 and p=0.00). Conclusions: having clear knowledge and awareness on the consequences of premarital sex helped students to develop negative attitude towards premarital sex. Liberal perception and thought were background to have liberal attitude towards premarital sex. Collaborative work at micro-ecological to Meso ecological level will be a good ground to empower students’ to have good knowledge on premarital sex.