Parenting as an inhibitor of gender disparities in alcohol use: the case of early adolescents in China

Background Gender differences in alcohol use are more substantial among early adolescents in China than in the United States, presumably because of more permissive drinking norms for boys than girls in Chinese culture. This study tested a theory that gender differences in early experimentation with...

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Published in:BMC public health Vol. 20; no. 1; pp. 1098 - 12
Main Authors: Bo, Ai, Jaccard, James
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: London BioMed Central 13.07.2020
BioMed Central Ltd
Springer Nature B.V
BMC
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adolescent Behavior
Adolescents
Alcohol Drinking - epidemiology
Alcohol use
Alcohols
Behavior
Biostatistics
Children & youth
China
Demographic aspects
Drinking
Drinking behavior
Empathy
Environmental Health
Epidemiology
Experimentation
Female
Gender aspects
Gender differences
Girls
Health behavior
health promotion and society
Humans
Juvenile drinking
Male
Medicine
Medicine & Public Health
Middle and junior high school students
Moderators
Norms
Parent-child relations
Parental empathy
Parental involvement
Parental monitoring
Parenting - psychology
Parents & parenting
Perceptions
Permissiveness
Polls & surveys
Psychological aspects
Public Health
Regression analysis
Research Article
Robustness (mathematics)
Sex differences
Sex differences (Psychology)
Sex Factors
Sex roles
Social aspects
Studies
Surveys
Surveys and Questionnaires
Teenagers
Underage drinking
Vaccine
Youth
China
United States > US
Taiwan
Parental empathy
Parental involvement
Underage drinking
Parental monitoring
ISSN:1471-2458, 1471-2458
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Background Gender differences in alcohol use are more substantial among early adolescents in China than in the United States, presumably because of more permissive drinking norms for boys than girls in Chinese culture. This study tested a theory that gender differences in early experimentation with alcohol can be reduced through general parenting practices. Whereas traditional research has identified mediators of gender differences in alcohol use, the current research isolated moderators of gender differences and developed their implications for prevention programs. Methods The study analyzed the data from the China Global School-Based Student Health Survey ( n  = 8805 middle school students in four cities). Youth completed anonymous surveys in classroom settings. The study examined interaction effects between gender and parenting variables using multiple regression with robust standard errors. Results Early adolescent boys exhibited higher levels of drinking than girls for all drinking outcomes. The gender differences in drinking were negatively associated with the level of perceived parental monitoring, parental involvement in adolescent school performance, and parental empathy in a nonlinear way. Conclusions Results suggested that early adolescents’ perceptions of general parenting practice nonlinearly moderated gender disparities in alcohol use.
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ISSN:1471-2458
1471-2458
DOI:10.1186/s12889-020-09195-2