| Abstract
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The high rate of migration of young people to urban and economic centers in the context of persistent poverty and devastating HIV/AIDS burden raise intricate social policy questions on early sexual behavior in Nigeria. This dissertation explores the linkages between patterns of adolescent internal migration and premarital sexual initiation, condom use at premarital sexual debut, risk perception for sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and being sexually active before marriage. The study analyzes data from the 1999 and 2003 Nigeria Demographic and Health Surveys, utilizing bivariate statistics, Kaplan-Meier survival curves, discrete-time hazard and binary logistic regression models. The results link rural-urban migrants with the strongest independent association to early premarital sexual initiation, lending support to the notion that exposure to a more sexually lenient urban environment different from normatively traditional rural origins may increase the propensity of rural-urban migrant adolescents to premarital sexual involvement. Other significant covariates are adolescent age, gender, religious affiliation, ethnic origin, independent living arrangement, and employment in the formal sector. The analyses of predictors of condom use, perception of risk of STIs, and being sexually active, collectively quantify the high-risk context that premarital sexual engagement entails in Nigeria (15.8% of condom use at sexual initiation, 64% being sexually active, and 45% denying any risk of STIs). The findings highlight the complexity of social contexts that exist within groups in one country, the inadequacy of policy perspectives that neglect contextual nuances and the need to look beyond sexual behavior to address limited livelihood opportunities that fuel massive and often distress adolescent rural out-migration to urban destinations.
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