The known benefits to being a well-educated person with a good job just keep accruing. In addition to the obvious – money, power and control over one's own life – new research from Spain suggests that for women especially, sexual satisfaction and safety is another reward.
Researchers from the Barcelona Public Health Agency examined data from 9,850 interviews done as part of the Spanish National Sexual Health Survey in 2009, according to a statement by the researchers on Science Daily.
"People that have a more disadvantaged socioeconomic status tend to have less satisfying and less safe sexual relations, as well as suffering more experiences of sexual abuse. Furthermore, women usually suffer more experiences of sexual abuse than men and they claim to have less sexual gratification during their first sexual intercourse," Dolores Ruiz, the main author of the study, said in the release. Ruiz also found that socioeconomic factors influence the use of contraceptives for both men and women – athough the use is generally positive – up to 92 per cent for women with a casual partner – it also drops with lowered socioeconomic status.
In general, Ruiz found that people with better jobs, incomes and education "seem to have a better awareness of their own needs and a greater capacity for developing their sexuality in a way which is satisfying for them," according to the statement.
The study appears to dwell mostly on safe sex and non-abusive sex as evidence of sexual satisfaction that accompanies high socioeconomic status. But that's not the whole picture. Otherwise, there would be no market for the drugs, therapy and exercise tips aimed at women (and men) who have lost their sex drive, would there?