Poster #90 - Parental Investments During Childhood and Sexual Outcomes in Adolescence and Young Adulthood

• In Event: Poster Session 17

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine how parenting investments in young children influence their sexual development throughout adolescence and young adulthood. Parents play an important role in promoting healthy sexual development of adolescents. Parental warmth and parental monitoring during adolescence have been frequently studied in relation to adolescent sexual outcomes and have been found to be effective in preventing risky sexual behaviors (Kincaid et al., 2012). However, it is not known how these parenting strategies used while children are young influence their later sexual outcomes (Meschke et al., 2002). Further, one aspect of parenting that has not yet been studied in relation to adolescent sexual development is parent-child contact, the amount of time parents spend with their children. This is surprising, considering that parent-child contact when children are young contributes to a wide range of developmental outcomes (Cobb-Clark et al., 2019).

This study is situated within a framework of parental investments in children. Becker’s household model of intergenerational transmission of knowledge from parents to children (Becker & Tomes, 1976) conceptualizes different types of parenting practices as forms of investments in their children. Like any form of investment with later payoffs, parenting practices when children are young likely influence later sexual outcomes. Parents could therefore promote healthy sexual development in their children through investments of their time and through parenting styles during childhood.

Using a nationally representative longitudinal sample of 1,172 children and their primary caregivers in the United States from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), we examined how three parenting practices in 2002—total time spent with children, parental monitoring, and parental warmth—relate to children’s later sexual development throughout adolescence and emerging adulthood. Using OLS regression, we examined three sexual outcomes of children in both 2007 and 2013: whether children had participated in sexual intercourse, the frequency of sexual intercourse, and the total number of sexual partners.

Our analyses revealed gender differences in how parental practices related to later sexual outcomes. For boys, parental warmth during childhood was negatively associated with the number of sexual partners in adolescence and the frequency of intercourse in young adulthood. On the other hand, for girls, parental warmth during childhood was positively associated with the number of sexual partners in adolescence and not significantly associated with the frequency of intercourse in young adulthood. Further, monitoring a child’s whereabouts during childhood was negatively associated with the frequency of sexual intercourse in adolescence for girls, but was positively associated for boys.

Surprisingly, parent-child contact during childhood did not relate to adolescents’ sexual outcomes. While there were some associations between parent-child contact and sexual outcomes, they were extremely small.

These findings demonstrate that parenting practices when children are young have meaningful connections to their children’s sexual development. We find that the nature of parent-child interactions (i.e. monitoring, warmth) are likely more important for later sexual development that the quantity of parent-child interactions (i. e. parent-child contact).

Authors

• Ashley Forbush, Brigham Young University
  Presenting Author

• Jocelyn Wikle, Brigham Young University