Sample description

• Author: Ford Hickson - Axel J. Schmidt - David S. Reid - Peter Weatherburn - Ulrich Marcus - Susanne B. Schink
• Pages: 27-38

TECHNICAL REPORT EMIS-2017 – The European Men-W ho-Have-Sex-With-Men Internet Surv ey

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3. Sample description

The variables reported in th is chapter relate to charac teristics of the partic ipants and their situation that HIV/STI

and health promotion programmes cannot change or are not usually trying to change. In other words, there is no

‘preferred’ response to the questions although som e programmes may have outcome t argets related to these

characteristics (for example, reducing sex work).

From the perspective of sex ual health promotion, t he characteristics reported i n this chapter sometim es describe a

target group for interventions (for example, trans men). The way in which morbidities, risk and precaution

behaviour, health promotion needs and experienc e of interventions vary acro ss these characteristics is reported in

Chapter 8. For a description of how these characterist ics vary by country of residenc e see Section 3.11.

3.1 Summary

This chapter describes th e demographic characteristic s of 127 792 men resident in 48 co untries.

• Sex at birth and current gender identity – being mal e was a requirement of participation. In all, 99% defined

themselves as ‘male’ and 1% considered themselv es to be a ‘trans man’ ( either self-defining as a ‘trans man’

or reported having been ‘ assigned female at birth’).

• Age – the average (median) a ge was 36 years old (ran ge 14 to 100, mean 37.2, standard deviation 12. 8).

Average age varied substan tially by country of r esidence.

• Country of residence – 85% were resident in the EU; 5% in EFTA countries; 3% in EU Enlargement Area

countries; 3% in EU Neighbourhood Policy countries and 5% in Russia.

• Migration history – 13% were not born in the country where they currently lived. Of these, 62% were born in

another European country; 13% in South America; 10% in Asia; and 8% in North America or the Caribbean.

• Education – 97% had some educatio n post 16 (median number o f years was six) and 89% had two or more

years post-16 education.

• Employment – 72% were in e mployment, with over half employed full-time. More than one in 20 were

unemployed and there was a sizable minority of students (14%).

• Financial coping – 17% reported struggli ng financially; 34% neither struggling nor co mfortable and 49%

reported they were finan cially comfortable.

• Sexual attraction – <1% indicated they were not attracted to anyone, 5% were attracted to non-binary 37

people, 16% to women an d 99% to men. All thos e who did not indicate they were attracted to men h ad

previously had sex with m en.

• Sexual identity – 77% identif ied as gay or homosexu al and 16% as bisexual. Among the remainin g

participants, not usually applying a term was more common (5%) than using any other term (1%) or defining

as straight or heterosexua l (<1%).

• ‘Outness’ – of those attracted to men, 59% were open about this attrac tion to the majority of people th ey knew.

• Current partnerships – 39% h ad a current steady par tner, most commonly on e male partner (31% of all

participants). Overall, 14% h ad never had a steady partner and 16% had had a relationsh ip break-up in the

last 12 months. A total of 54% were currently single.

• Buying and selling sex – More particip ants had bought sex th an had sold it, both in th eir lifetime (18% versu s

15%) and in the last 12 months (10% versus 5%). The majorit y who had either sold o r bought sex in the last

12 months had done so only once or twice.

3.2 Sex at birth and current gender identity

Identifying as a man was a qu alifying condition for takin g part in the survey (so there is no missing dat a for this

variable). All respondents w ere asked ‘What is your curr ent gender identity?’ and were offered the responses: m an;

trans man; woman; trans woman; non-binary gender.

Those who indicated woman, trans woman or non-binary gender were told ‘This sur vey is for people who ident ify

as men (cis and trans). You are very w elcome to read and compl ete the rest of the sur vey however we will be

unable to use your data.’ Any data provided is not reported here.

Those who indicated ‘man ’ or ‘trans man’ were asked ‘ What sex were you assign ed at birth?’ Of the 127 792 men

in the final sample, 0.8 % (n=965) identified a s a trans man and 0.6% (n=7 06) indicated the sex th ey were

assigned at birth was femal e (N=127 441, ‘Decline to stat e’ n=127, missing n=224). Table 3.1 below shows the

associations between respo nses to these two questio ns. Section 3.11 show s country variation in the perc entage

that were assigned female s ex at birth.

37 Non-binary is a category for gender identities that are not exclusively masculine or femi nine - identities that are outside the

gender binary.