Risky Behaviours among Adolescents with Migration Background: Does the Homophily in Friendship Matter?

• In Event: 2151 - Section on Alcohol, Drugs, and Tobacco Roundtable
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 1. Communities, Networks, and Drug Problems

Abstract

A wider identification of determinants of health risky behaviours of adolescents with a migration background is still under-studied even if migrants’ health and behaviours represent an important issue of multicultural societies. Specifically, this study aims to investigate the role of homphily in the ethnic composition of adolescents’ friendship as a mediator in the association between ethnicity and risky behaviours. Data were drawn from the UK Millennium Cohort Study (MCS). Path analysis was conducted to estimate direct and indirect association between ethnic background and a set of risky behaviours, such as drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes, use cannabis and early sexual intercourse. This study seeks to contribute to the literature, by providing new evidence on the role of having same ethnic friends in encouraging or, on the contrary, discouraging adolescents from adopting certain risks.  

Authors

• Marta Pasqualini, University of Rome La Sapienza

• Wanli Nie, Departamento de Ciencias Polıticas y Sociales, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain