Nov 11, 2009 - Parents Matter: The Role of Parents in Teens' ... with higher levels of educational attainment.2-4 In this Research ... pregnancy.5,6 Because of the significant role that parents can potentially play in influencing their teens to.
RESEARCH BRIEF
Publication #2009-45
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Parents Matter: The Role of Parents in Teens’ Decisions About Sex By Erum Ikramullah, B.A./B.S., Jennifer Manlove, Ph.D., Carol Cui, B.A., and Kristin A. Moore, Ph.D.
November 2009
verview. Adolescents are influenced by a variety of social factors and institutions. Prior research1 confirms what many of us know instinctively: that parents can be one of the strongest influences in adolescents’ lives. For example, higher levels of parental involvement in their adolescents’ lives are linked with lower levels of delinquency, violent behavior, high-school dropout, and drug abuse, as well as with higher levels of educational attainment.2-4 In this Research Brief, we look specifically at whether parental involvement in adolescence reduces the chances of teens being sexually active at a young age.
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Compelling reasons exist for exploring this topic. Early adolescent sexual experience is linked with a variety of risky outcomes, including acquiring a sexually transmitted infection (STI) and having an unintended pregnancy.5,6 Because of the significant role that parents can potentially play in influencing their teens to delay having sex—thus reducing the risk of negative reproductive health outcomes—it is important to understand whether and how multiple dimensions of parental involvement are associated with the timing of teens’ first sexual experience. To further this understanding, Child Trends analyzed data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth—1997 cohort to explore how parenting practices that occur before adolescents become sexually experienced are associated with the probability of sexual experience by age 16. This Research Brief reports our key findings. We found that multiple measures of parental involvement and engagement are associated with delayed sex among teens. These measures include positive parent-adolescent relationship quality, high parental awareness and monitoring, and family dinner routines. Specifically, our analyses showed that adolescent girls who reported higher quality relationships with their mothers and fathers, and adolescent boys who reported that they ate dinner with their families every day were less likely to have sexual intercourse at an early age. The same held true for both adolescent girls and adolescent boys who reported that their parents kept close tabs on whom they were with when not at home.
In two recent nationally representative polls of 12to 19-year-olds and of adults aged 20 and older (including parents of teens), respondents were asked about who they think is most influential when it comes to teens’ decisions about sex. 7 Response categories included: parents, friends, teachers and sex educators, religious leaders, the media, siblings, teens themselves, or someone else. Parents have more influence than they think on their adolescents’ decisions about sex. Nearly one-half of 12- to 19-year-olds (47 percent) reported that their parents had the most influence on their decisions about sex. However, only one-third of parents of adolescents (34 percent) reported that parents were the most influential. © 2009 Child Trends
Figure 1 100% % who report parents as having the most influence on adolescents’ decisions about sex
PARENTS’ INFLUENCE ON ADOLESCENT SEXUAL ACTIVITY
Parents have greater influence than they realize on their adolescents’ decisions about sex
90% 80% 70%
59%
60% 50%
47% 39%
40%
34%
30% 20% 10% 0%
12-19 year-olds
12-14 year-olds
Adolescents
15-19 year-olds
Parents of adolescents (12-19)
Source: With One Voice, 2007. The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy
ABOUT THE DATA SOURCES FOR THIS BRIEF The National Longitudinal Survey of Youth—1997 cohort (NLSY97) is sponsored and directed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor. The NLSY97 is a nationally representative survey of young people who were aged 12 to 16 in 1997. It provides valuable information on parent-youth relationships, youth sexual experiences, and family background and demographic factors. We used a sample of 4,581 adolescents (2,277 adolescent boys and 2,304 adolescent girls) who were aged 12-14 and had never engaged in sexual intercourse at the time of the first round of the survey. They were initially interviewed in 1997, and we include annual follow-up data through 2005. Figure 1 is based on data from the 2007 With One Voice poll published by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unintended Pregnancy.7 For Figures 2-8, we used data from the NLSY97 sample of 4,581 adolescents. For Figures 2-4, parent-adolescent relationship quality was measured in 1997 as a three-item summative index ranging from 0-12 that captures the extent to which the adolescent agrees with the following three statements about his or her residential mother/father: “I think highly of him/her,” “I really enjoy spending time with him/her,” and “He/she is a person I want to be like.” Response categories for each question ranged from 0: strongly disagree to 4: strongly agree. We classified the index into three categories: low (0-7), medium (8-10), and high (11-12) relationship quality. Data in Figures 2, 5, and 7 are based on bivariate cross-tabular analyses, whereas the data in Figures 3-4, 6, and 8 are based on predicted probability estimates that sexually inexperienced adolescents in 1997 would have sexual intercourse before age 16. We incorporated predicted probabilities to estimate levels of sexual experience by varying levels of parent-adolescent relationship quality, parental awareness, and family dinner routines. For all estimates, we controlled for age, gender, race/ethnicity, family structure (two biological or adoptive parents versus other family structures), parental education (less than or equal to high school diploma versus greater than high school), and whether the respondent’s mother was a teenage mother. We weighted all analyses to present population-level estimates. All differences presented in this brief are statistically significant (p
