Millennials may be having sex with fewer people than their parents and grandparents, a study has claimed.

Those who belonged to Generation X had an average of 10 sexual partners, and baby boomers had 12, the data analysis published in the Archives of Sexual Behaviour found.

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In contrast, the younger generation actually had only eight partners, despite being the most open-minded about premarital sex.

The percentage of respondents who believed intercourse before marriage to be “not wrong at all” was 29 per cent in the early 1970s, 42 per cent in the 1980s and 1990s, 49 per cent in the 2000s, and 58 per cent between 2010 and 2012.

The analysis was based on 40 years’ worth of survey data from almost 34,000 people in the US.