Poster #124 - Is Religion of Head-of-Household in Chad Related to Parenting Behavior Intended as Discipline?

• In Event: Poster Session 06

Abstract

Parenting behavior used for disciplinary intent varies substantially within and across countries. Some evidence from high-income countries (HICs) suggests that at least some variance may be accounted for by household religion. More specifically, some studies have found that Protestant households (especially Conservative subgroups) are associated with a higher likelihood of spanking than other groups in HICs (Hoffmann, Ellison, & Bartkowski, 2017). However, there has been little investigation of these patterns outside of HICs and of the potential influence of non-Christian religious affiliations. An exception is a study from Cameroon which found higher odds of younger children being hit with an object within Protestant versus Muslim and Catholic households, although no difference in spanking (McLennan, Dufe, Afifi, MacMillan, & Warriyar K.V., 2022). This current study replicates the analytic approach used in the Cameroon study using a recent (2019) national representative survey of Chad, which contains the same parent behavior measures as the Cameroon study. The dataset comes from UNICEF’s Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey program. Chad is a country with a majority Muslim population, in contrast to Cameroon where the Muslim population is in the minority. Of the 28,058 households from the Chad national survey used for this this study, 60.7% were Muslim (based on identified religion of the head-of-household), with 19.8% and 19.5% forming Catholic and Protestant groups, respectively. The odds of being spanked was significantly lower in Muslim versus Catholic and Protestant households in both an unadjusted model and a model adjusted for socioeconomic and demographic covariates. Odds of being hit with an object was also lower for Muslim children compared with Protestant children (but not compared to Catholic children in adjusted models). The odds of use of a combination of parenting behaviours (use of physical punishment(s) along with non-violent and psychological aggression practices) was also lower in Muslim households compared to the other two groups (when child age was set at a mean of 7.07 years). For this combined parenting behaviour there was also a significant age-by-religion interaction such that the odds of use of this behavior became lower with increased child age for Muslim compared with Protestant and Catholic households. These preliminary findings indicate that household religion may be an important variable in the study of parent behavior used for disciplinary intent in low- and middle-income countries. However, as the influence of religion may vary across settings, the pattern identified in one country should not be assumed to generalize to other countries. Further examination of variation across settings, in addition to inquiries as to possible mechanism of a religious influence, are warranted.

Authors

• John Duncan McLennan, University of Calgary (U of C)
  Presenting Author

• Kewir Dufe, University of Calgary

• Harriet L. MacMillan, McMaster University

• Tracie Afifi, University of Manitoba

• Vineetha Warriyar, University of Calgary