Family Composition and Youth Health Risk Behaviors: the Role of Patental Relation and the School Context

Children not residing with both parents have been shown to be more at risk of negative developmental outcomes than children residing in two-parent families. Few studies have explored how other central contexts may interact with family characteristics to hinder or facilitate youth adjustment. This study examines how aspects of family structure and family processes are associated with youth health risk behaviors and interact with the structural characteristics of schools. The analyses are based on data from the Stockholm School Survey and consist of 5 002 ninth-grade students distributed over 92 schools in the Stockholm area in 2010. School information has been gathered from the Swedish National Agency for Education. Random intercept and fully random models have been used. Results show that adolescents not living with both their parents are more involved in health risk behaviors than adolescents that do. Poor parent–child relations accounts for more of the disadvantage associated with non-traditional family structures than differences in socioeconomic background. Results further suggest that health risk behaviors are more prevalent in more advantaged school settings, net the effect of individual background characteristics. Moreover, advantage school settings are found to accentuate the detrimental effects of poor parent–child relations on health risk behaviors. In conclusion, the study suggests that the effect of family type and family processes on youth behavior is susceptible to contextual effects of the school environment and that more advantage school settings have detrimental direct and indirect effects on youth health risk behaviors.