Health Education Research Advance Access published May 30, 2010
HEALTH EDUCATION RESEARCH
Pages 12
Gender and family differences in adolescent’s heavy
alcohol use: the power-control theory perspective
E-mail: [email protected]
Received on December 2, 2009; accepted on April 2, 2010
Abstract
According to the power-control theory, growing
independence of adolescent girls, manifest in
more prevalent problem behaviors, may be
explained by changes in family structure (increasing level of authority gained in the workplace by
mothers). To verify this hypothesis, self-report
data from Warsaw adolescents (N 5 3087, age
14–15 years, 50% boys) were used. Results indicate that parenting practices differ across child
gender and structure of parents’ work authority.
Girls, especially in patriarchal households, spend
more time with mothers and perceive stronger
maternal control. In egalitarian families, fathers
tend to be more involved with sons than with
daughters. When parental control, support and
adolescents’ risk preferences are controlled, the
gender-by-household type interaction effect is
observed—girls in patriarchal families have the
lowest risk of getting drunk. Study results provide support for power-control theory showing
the relationship between parental work authority
and adolescent’s heavy alcohol use.
Introduction
Problem behaviors, delinquent acts and crime are
traditionally considered a bigger issue for males
than females. However, there has been a recent increase in research interest regarding the aggressive-
ness and delinquency of female adolescents [1–7].
This interest is caused by growing rates of young
females’ involvement in problem behaviors noted
in epidemiological studies. Increasing female adolescent’s alcohol use has been found in European
Union (EU) countries, particularly those belonging
to the ‘old Union’ (who were EU members in the
1990s; [8, 9]), as well as in the United States [10]
and Taiwan [11]. Delinquent behaviors are more
and more frequently observed not only in Europe
but in Asia and the United States, too [12, 13].
In Poland, a similar tendency has been observed
in local and national studies. In a Warsaw survey,
covering >20 years, the increasing prevalence of
alcohol use for boys was observed from the mid
1980s to the mid 1990s, but in the 2000s prevalence
began to decline [14]. Conversely, girls’ alcohol
use has increased consistently since the mid
1980s [15]. Until 2000, boys consumed large
amounts of alcohol much more frequently than
girls. However, in 2004 frequent abuse of alcohol
was reported by as many girls as boys [14].
Observations from this local study are consistent
with other Polish surveys which placed changes in
alcohol consumption in a context of other problem
behaviors [16, 17]. Today, adolescent girls in
Poland use alcohol, smoke cigarettes and try illicit
drugs at least as frequently as boys.
Negative trends among girls are explained
mainly as a consequence of earlier females’ pubertal development. Girls mature earlier than boys, so
they try to become independent from parents and to
Ó The Author 2010. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.
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doi:10.1093/her/cyq032
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K. Okulicz-Kozaryn
Department of Psychology and Mental Heath Promotion, Institute of Psychiatry and Neurology, Sobieskiego 9,
02-957 Warsaw, Poland
K. Okulicz-Kozaryn
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The level of control is just one of the expressions
of traditional gender-based socialization. The others,
well documented in the literature, concern encouragement of sex-typed activities, guiding offspring
toward particular academic or career choices [22],
taking on housework by daughters and sons [28,
29], the tendency to place more value on interdependence and communion in girls’ than boys’ socialization [30] and more tolerance (at least in Europe)
in sons’ than daughters’ peer relationships [23].
According to Grasmick et al. [31], these differences
in child-rearing practices in traditional families yield
a gender gap in children’s risk preferences—boys
have higher taste for risk than girls. This risk orientation during adolescence may be manifested in alcohol and drug use, aggressiveness, truancy,
vulnerability to crime or other acting-out behaviors.
In less traditional and more egalitarian families,
in which both parents have similar occupational
authority, the process of socialization of boys and
girls may be less differentiated. Maternal control of
daughters is reduced, while their control of sons
may be increased [32]. Yet, fathers in these families
are more involved with their daughters, while maternal job prestige is not related to their involvement with sons [22]. As a result, children exhibit
less stereotyped gender concepts, preferences and
attitudes [33]. Females are more likely to be risk
taking and finally, the gender gap in delinquency is
smaller or does not appear—girls tend to behave
like boys [32].
Power-control theory does not explain the mechanism of mother’s and father’s workplace authority
transformation into authority within the family.
This theory is rather based on the traditional vision
of male’s and female’s roles in the society than on
scientific models. Despite this theoretical gap, it
gives a new perspective on negative trends in problem behaviors among adolescent girls, recently observed in Poland and in other countries [8–17].
To test the main ideas of power-control theory in
Poland seems very intriguing for several reasons.
First of all, in the past 20 years significant changes
in the labor market have occurred. The percentage
of women who are the main source of family income has been stable since the late 1980s (;45%);
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foster tighter bonds with peers earlier than boys [9].
Moreover, the age of onset of menstruation has
decreased in all industrialized countries during the
last century. Biological maturity has a strong effect
on alcohol drinking by girls and their tendency to
associate with older boys and leads to increased
exposure to substance use [18, 19].
The increasing exposure to psychoactive substances among girls may also be due to gender differences in ways of spending free time. In Poland,
girls spend more time outside of the home than boys
and this may be a risk factor for alcohol use. Correspondingly, more boys than girls play computer
games and have computing as a hobby [17]. For
boys, this way of spending free time probably limits
their direct contact with peers and thus limits the
opportunities and occasions for drinking alcohol.
The power-control theory of delinquency of Hagan
et al. [20, 21] also provides a useful conceptual
framework for understanding gender differences in
alcohol use. This theory links differences in socialization of boys and girls with the power relationships
between parents in the home, which are extensions of
power relationships of males and females in the labor
force. Power structures between parents generate different kinds of households. In traditional patriarchal
families, fathers typically have more authority in the
workforce than mothers and this gets expressed in the
home. This idea is supported by studies in a literature
review by McHale et al. [22], which revealed that
fathers’ values and preferences better explain children’s gender development than mothers’. In families
where there is a balance in the degree of power held
by husbands and wives or wives’ work authority is
higher than husbands’, the household structure may
be described as less patriarchal or more balanced. In
the home, it is expressed by more paternal involvement into daily family life than in traditional patriarchal families [22].
Traditionally, parental control is stronger for
daughters than for sons [23–25]. Moreover, maternal control is usually stronger than paternal control
[25–27]. In this connection, in power-control theory, mothers are identified as the primary instruments of control and daughters as the primary
objects of control [21].
Gender and family differences in alcohol use
reducing gender stratification. Adolescent females’
alcohol use, for example, will be one manifestation
of their desire for autonomy and may reflect differences in parenting for male versus female children
[36]. In this study, heavy alcohol use was chosen as
the dependent variable because it is the stronger
indicator of problem behaviors than alcohol use
[37–40]. Great majority of adolescents use alcohol
but most of them may be characterized as social
drinkers—nonproblem drinkers [41] or those who
drink without getting drunk [42, 43].
We hypothesized that (i) parenting practices differ across child gender and power structure between
parents; (ii) adolescents risk preferences are predicted by gender, household type and parenting
practices of mothers and fathers; (iii) all variables
mentioned above predict adolescents’ heavy alcohol use and girls in families with more maternal
power are at higher risk for alcohol abuse than girls
in more patriarchal families, while for boys the
family structure has no influence on getting drunk.
Method
This research project was approved by the Bioethical Committee affiliated to the Institute of Psychiatry and Neurology in Warsaw, Poland, and by the
Office that oversees the Human Subject Protection
in the Fogarty International Center, National Institutes of Health, USA.
Data were collected during the first semester of the
school year 2007/2008, from the representative sample of Warsaw middle-school eighth-grade students.
Students’ average age was 14.5 years. Classroom
was the unit of randomization. A total of 158 classes
from 99 schools were selected and 148 classes participated in the study (therein 130 classes from public
and 18 from nonpublic schools). Nine classes from
special centers for adolescents with problem behaviors and school failures were also included.
Once classes were selected and consents for the
study were obtained from school principals, parents
and youths, students participated in the anonymous
survey conducted in the classrooms by specially
trained research assistants. Questionnaires were
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nevertheless, their position in the workplace and
social and political life is growing. Poland, for example, has observed a systematic growth of the
percentage of women receiving scientific degrees
(e.g. in the years 1991–2005 the rate of women with
professor title increased from 22% to 27% of all
professors). Similarly, the last several parliamentary elections in Poland have also seen an increase
in women running for political office. In 1991, 13%
of candidates were women that almost doubled in
2005 to 26%, and the number of women in the
Parliament doubled from 10% to 20% during this
same period. The presence of women in local governments increased as well [34]. Recently, the rate
of women leading their own enterprises also increased from 34% in 2001 to 39% in 2005 [34].
Therefore, the position of women in the workplace
and social and political life is growing. So it is
possible that more and more girls grow up in
less patriarchal families. Therefore, their drinking
style becomes more similar to the way boys drink
alcohol.
The second reason of our interest in powercontrol theory is that it was developed in Canada—a
country that significantly differs from Poland in
terms of social structure, recent history, labor market, etc. For example, communists ruling in Poland
resulted in relative degradation of scientists’ position compared with clerks and blue-collars. Until
now, incomes of university professors are in average 13% lower than incomes of department managers [35]. Therefore, in Poland the influence on
adolescents’ development of parental work authority, as defined by Hagan et al. [20, 21], might be
even stronger than in societies with longer and notdisrupted history of market economy.
The last but not least is the fact that power-control theory is not very well known in Poland and
never before has been applied to explain any social
phenomenon. One goal of this study is to examine
sex differences in alcohol use in a sample of Polish
adolescents. Guided by power-control theory we
expect that adolescents’ alcohol use will reflect
the changing dynamics of women in Polish society.
This societal role change is expected to affect both
parenting behavior and adolescents’ behavior by
K. Okulicz-Kozaryn
and families with mothers’ and fathers’ balanced
levels of authority held in the workplace or families
with mothers higher position than fathers were
categorized as less patriarchal—egalitarian (65.2%).
Measures
Risk preferences
Most of the measures used in the study (other sources of items are mentioned below) were adapted for
a Polish sample from a study in the United States,
the Flint Adolescent Study [44].
Respondents answered four questions [45] asking
how often in the past 6 months they were doing
something dangerous just for the thrill it evokes;
riding bicycle or skating very fast, even risky, because it was exciting; doing some risky things because they were exciting and risking their safety
staying out of home late in the evening because it
was stimulating. Answers expressed on a five-point
Likert’s scale (from never to very often) were
recoded to none risk preferences—if the answer
for all four items was never (33.3% of cases),
low—indicating positive answer for no more than
two questions (30% of cases) and high risk preferences (36.7%).
Heavy alcohol use
The measure of the dependent variable was based
on the answer to the question about the frequency of
getting drunk in the past 12 months (‘In the past 12
months, how often, if ever, you got drunk, when
drinking beer, wine or vodka?’) with seven answers
to choose (from never to 40 times or more). Because of the significant deviance from normal distribution (skewness = 2.850, kurtosis = 8.798), all
answers were classified as never (74.2% of valid
cases) or at least once (25.8%) and logistic regression method was chosen to test hypothesis.
Parent employment
Adolescents answered two questions (developed
specially for this study) concerning separately
mother’s and father’s employment status: (i) Does
your mother/father work?, (ii) If your mother/father
works, is she/he in charge of other people? For both
questions, respondents were choosing one answer:
yes, no, I don’t know or I do not have mother/father.
Yes–no answers were combined to indicate three
categories of maternal/paternal working status: unemployed (15.2% of mothers and 5.3% of fathers),
working without authority (mothers 47.6%, fathers
38.1%) and working in a position of authority
(mothers 37.2%, fathers 56.5%). Those who
answered ‘I don’t know or I do not have mother/
father’ were dropped out from the analysis (17.5%).
Categories of occupational authority in the workplace of respondent’s parents were then collapsed
into a dichotomy: families with fathers in authority
positions in the workplace greater than those of
mothers were categorized as patriarchal (34.8%)
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Maternal and paternal support
Five items in the adolescent questionnaire concerned support they received from both mothers
and fathers. Respondents indicated on a five-point
Likert’s scale their agreement or disagreement with
the following statements: it’s a pleasure for my parent to listen to what I am telling her/him; I can rely
on my parent’s emotional support; my parent
knows how to help me in solving life problems; I
am deeply attached to my parent; I can rely on my
parent’s moral support. Answers were recoded into
three categories: low maternal/paternal support—
indicating agreement with no more than one statement (16.7% for mothers and 29.3% for fathers),
moderate—when respondent agreed with two,
three or four statements (31.9% for mothers and
27.5% for fathers) and strong—representing agreement with all five statements (51.4% for mothers
and 43.2% for fathers).
Maternal and paternal controls
Respondents were asked two questions, adapted
from a Canadian questionnaire [46], tapping socalled instrumental controls [47] for both mothers
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filed up by 3141 adolescents (85% sample execution). Due to incompletes or inconsistencies in
answers, data from 3087 respondents were included
in the analysis. Girls accounted for 50.4%.
Gender and family differences in alcohol use
Time with parents
Two questions measured time spent together with
mother and father. On six-point Likert’s scales
(from none to very much), adolescents indicated
how much time they spend with each of their
parents in an average week, e.g. doing some housework together, talking or watching TV. Answers 1–
4 (‘none’ to ‘fairly’) were coded as a little time
(49.1% with mothers and 65.5% with fathers) and
answers 5 and 6 (much and very much) as a lot of
time (50.9% with mothers and 34.5% with fathers).
Table I reports descriptive statistics and Cronbach’s alpha information for all the psychosocial
measures used in this study.
hold type and adolescent’s gender. Logistic
regression was chosen because the main objective
of this analysis was to examine the interaction effect
of two nominal variables: gender by family type,
which is not possible in the linear regression.
The third hypothesis was tested in binominal regression equation in which in the first step, heavy
alcohol use was predicted by parenting variables. In
the following steps, adolescent’s risk preferences
(Step 2), gender and type of household (Step 3)
and gender by type of family interaction (Step 4)
were added.
In spite of loosing statistical power to detect significant relationships, it was decided to collapse all
measures into categorical variables, with two or three
levels, for two reasons. First, the main dependent
variable—heavy alcohol use—was skewed and ‘flat’.
Second, the key independent variables—gender
and family type—are nominal. Since the main objective of the study was to show gender 3 family type
interaction against the background of parenting
variables and risk preferences, the statistical meaning
of all these measures had to be balanced.
Results
Analysis
Gender and household comparisons of alcohol abuse
were based on cross-tabulations and v2 tests. Differences in parenting practices were tested by one-way
analysis of variance with Tamhane’s post hoc comparisons. The second hypothesis was tested using
multinominal logistic regression analysis whereby
risk preferences were predicted by parenting variables (support, control, time spent with child), house-
Sex and family differences in adolescents’
heavy alcohol use
We found that getting drunk is less prevalent among
adolescent girls from patriarchal families (18.6%)
than it is in other subgroups: for boys in egalitarian
families, the prevalence is 25.0%; for boys in patriarchal families 26.1% and for girls in egalitarian
families 27.2% (v2 = 11.081, df = 3, P = 0.011).
Table I. Scales used in the study
Name
Number of items
Answers range
Mean
SD
Cronbach’s alpha
Risk preferences
Maternal support
Paternal support
Maternal control
Paternal control
4
5
5
2
2
0–16
0–20
0–20
0–8
0–8
3.46
15.33
13.64
5.58
4.50
4.11
4.66
5.62
2.23
2.70
0.871
0.916
0.946
0.889
0.957
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and fathers: whether their mothers and fathers
generally know where they are and whom they are
with. Responses, expressed on a five-point Likert’s
scale, were coded into a dichotomy differentiating
adolescents perceiving control as low—when
respondent disagreed with both or one of the statements (rates of low maternal and parental control
were, respectively, 41.6% and 56.4%) and strong—
indicating respondent’s positive answer for both
statements.
K. Okulicz-Kozaryn
Table II. Analysis of variance comparisons of parenting variables in subgroups differentiated by adolescents’ gender and family type
Boys/egalitarian
Girls/egalitarian
4.40b
1.12
b: P = 0.013
4.44c
1.18
c: P = 0.022
3.81a
1.34
3.93
1.31
Girls/patriarchal
4.63a,b,c
1.08
3.84
1.28
15.30
4.55
15.33
4.83
15.51
4.54
14.56b
5.26
b: P = 0.000
13.22a,b
5.78
13.65
5.28
5.37c,d
2.19
c: P = 0.005, d: P = 0.000
5.80a,c,e
2.21
e: P = 0.009
4.37a
2.76
4.57
2.66
6.19b,d,e
1.96
4.65
2.60
Letters a, b, c, d and e indicate significant differences between two groups.
Sex and family differences in parenting
practices
Adolescents’ risk preferences and gender,
household type and parenting practices
As can be seen in Table II, there are significant
differences in parenting practices toward daughters
and sons in different types of families. Girls from
patriarchal families spend more time with mothers
than girls from egalitarian families and boys from
either family type (F = 5.660, P = 0.001). On the
other hand, in egalitarian families boys spend more
time with fathers than girls do (F = 3.430, P =
0.016). There are no household type and gender
differences in the level of maternal support (F =
0.810, P = 0.488), but daughters in egalitarian families receive significantly less support from fathers
than sons in general (F = 7.543, P = 0.000). Maternal control is generally stronger for girls than for
boys and for girls in patriarchal than for girls in
egalitarian households (F = 17.183, P = 0.001).
Paternal control differs only in egalitarian families
being stronger for boys than girls (F = 2.620,
P = 0.049).
Gender is a significant predictor of adolescents’
risk preferences—they are much stronger among
boys than girls (Table III). The odds of strong risk
preferences are five times higher for boys than
girls. The relationship between risk preferences
and parenting variables is weaker. The odds of
low risk preferences (compared with none risk
preferences) are 1.5 times higher for those who
perceived moderate paternal support than for those
adolescents who have stronger paternal support.
When strong risk preferences are compared with
none risk preferences, significant influence of
parental control is visible. Odds of strong risk
preferences are 2.5 times higher for adolescents
perceiving low maternal control and 1.6 times
higher for those with low paternal control. Risk
preferences are not related to the power structure
between parents.
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Time spent with mother
Mean
4.36a
SD
1.05
a: P = 0.000
Time spent with father
Mean
4.01a
SD
1.34
a: P = 0.017
Maternal support
Mean
15.64
SD
4.33
Paternal support
Mean
14.23a
SD
5.36
a: P = 0.002
Maternal control
Mean
5.36a,b
SD
2.23
a: P = 0.000, b: P = 0.000
Paternal control
Mean
4.73a
SD
2.60
a: P = 0.042
Boys/patriarchal
Gender and family differences in alcohol use
Table III. Multinomial logistic regression of risk preferences
on gender, household type, parenting variables, n = 2282,
Negelkerke R2 = 0.161
Strong to none
risk preferences
Wald
Wald
0.237
0.003
0.451
6.768**
3.231
3.465
1.794
0.024
17.806***
0.180
0.987
Exp
(b)
1.104
0.993
2.284
1.926
Exp
(b)
1.354
1.213
1.125 0.001
0.994
1.455 0.002
0.993
1.294 41.507*** 2.496
1.298 11.084** 1.632
1.191 0.157
1.054
0.979 0.265
0.930
2.205 70.446*** 5.061
1.063 1.687
1.238
0.796
3.024
0.665
**P < 0.010; ***P < 0.001.
Regression of heavy alcohol use on parenting variables (Table IV) indicates that the odds of getting
drunk for adolescents who perceive weak maternal
control are 3 times higher than for adolescents
perceiving strong control, 1.4 times higher for
adolescents with weak paternal control than for
those who are strongly controlled by fathers and
nearly 1.5 times higher for those who spend a little
time with mothers. Inclusion of risk preferences
(Step 2) significantly improves the prediction of
alcohol abuse by teenagers but makes the paternal
control less significant. Strong and moderate risk
preferences are significant predictors of alcohol
abuse when parenting variables are controlled.
When gender and household type are included in
the equation (Step 3), a significant gender effect is
visible—girls abuse alcohol more often than boys.
The addition of the interaction of gender and
family type improves the model and indicates
Table IV. Binominal logistic regressions of alcohol abuse on gender, household type and parenting variables, n = 2194
Maternal support (strong)
Moderate
Weak
Paternal support (strong)
Moderate
Weak
Maternal control (strong)
Paternal control (strong)
Time with mother (a lot)
Time with father (a lot)
Risk preferences (none)
Low
High
Gender (girls)
Household type
(patriarchal)
Gender 3 household type
Step 1, R2 = 0.156
Step 2, R2 = 0.210
Step 3, R2 = 0.216
Step 4, R2 = 0.219
Wald
Wald
Wald
Wald
0.818
0.082
0.784
2.474
1.944
0.040
68.064***
5.281*
9.112**
1.968
Exp (b)
0.951
0.887
1.255
1.030
2.981
1.409
1.473
1.225
1.259
0.227
1.250
3.159
2.986
0.407
43.613***
3.401
7.438**
3.189
89.103***
5.030*
73.688***
Exp (b)
0.918
0.857
1.334
1.101
2.451
1.323
1.431
1.302
1.411
3.325
1.290
0.458
1.273
2.386
2.165
0.201
47.006***
2.625
8.701**
2.972
96.731***
6.388*
81.472***
9.064**
1.114
Exp (b)
0.884
0.856
1.280
1.070
2.568
1.281
1.479
1.292
1.478
3.722
0.704
1.130
1.364
0.496
1.344
2.557
2.320
0.217
46.156***
2.615
8.789**
2.933
95.605***
6.281*
80.472***
0.006
5.061*
4.592*
Exp (b)
0.879
0.852
1.292
1.073
2.549
1.281
1.482
1.290
1.474
3.700
0.985
1.464
0.608
*P < 0.050; **P < 0.010; ***P < 0.001.
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Maternal support (strong)
Weak
Moderate
Paternal support (strong)
Weak
Moderate
Maternal control (strong)
Paternal control (strong)
Time with mother (a lot)
Time with father (a lot)
Gender (girls)
Household type
(patriarchal)
Gender 3 household
type
Low to none
risk preferences
Adolescents’ heavy alcohol use and their
risk preferences, gender, family type and
parental practices
K. Okulicz-Kozaryn
(i) mother is unemployed/father works (13% of the
sample),
(ii) mother works without authority/father works in
a position of authority (21%),
(iii) both parents work and mother’s work position
is equal or higher than father’s (60%),
(iv) father is unemployed (6%).
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Table V. Binominal logistic regressions of heavy alcohol use
among boys (n = 1054) and girls (n = 1140)
Boys, R2 = 0.182
Wald
Girls, R2 = 0.266
Exp (b) Wald
Maternal support
0.782
(strong)
Moderate
0.464
1.194
Weak
0.668
1.171
Paternal support
0.299
(strong)
Moderate
0.017
0.969
Weak
0.272
0.895
Maternal control 18.592*** 2.359
(strong)
Paternal control
1.231
1.273
(strong)
Time with mother 0.182
1.084
(a lot)
Time with father
4.034*
1.519
(a lot)
Risk preferences 40.301***
(none)
Low
0.785
1.257
High
25.595*** 3.147
Household type
0.267
0.921
(patriarchal)
Exp (b)
7.014*
3.835
6.515*
4.850
0.600
0.595
4.785*
1.680
1.284
1.281
27.654*** 2.755
1.887
1.348
14.320*** 2.050
0.535
1.172
56.523***
5.632*
1.591
53.411*** 4.159
4.391*
1.436
*P < 0.050; ***P < 0.001.
We found no differences in the amount of time
spent by adolescents with unemployed mothers and
with mothers from other patriarchal families, but
families with unemployed mothers differed from
egalitarian families. Conversely, unemployed
fathers spent less time with their children than
fathers from the other three family structures.
Discussion
This study tested the viability of power-control theory for explaining gender differences in the level of
alcohol abuse in a sample of Polish adolescents.
The results provide support for the main thesis of
this theory.
As hypothesized, the socialization process is different for boys and girls in different household
types. Girls perceive stronger maternal control than
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significant relationship between household type
and alcohol abuse (the odds of getting drunk for
adolescents from egalitarian families are 1.5 times
the odds for those from more patriarchal families)
and shows the interaction effect (the risk of getting
drunk is the lowest for boys from egalitarian
families).
To better understand this interaction effect, separate logistic regression analysis were conducted
for boys and girls (Table V) and different types of
families (Table VI). As can be seen in Table V,
significant predictors of heavy alcohol use among
boys were weak maternal control, a little time spent
with father and strong risk preferences. There was
no household type effect. Heavy alcohol use by
girls increased with their risk preferences and is
predicted by maternal practices: support, control
and time they spend together. Moreover, for girls,
a significant household effect is observed—the
odds of getting drunk are 1.4 times higher for girls
from egalitarian families.
Data in Table VI indicate significant differences
in alcohol abuse predictors between families. In
both types of families, there is significant relationship between adolescents’ alcohol abuse and their
risk preferences and the level of maternal control.
Moreover, in egalitarian households the risk of getting drunk is higher for adolescents perceiving low
maternal and paternal support, for those spending
less time with mothers and for girls.
In order to further understand the effect of family
structure and differentiate it from the effect due to
both parents working outside of the household
(which can potentially result in less time to supervise the child), we also conducted analyses that
further disaggregated family structure. We defined
four family categories differentiating unemployed
parents:
Gender and family differences in alcohol use
Table VI. Binominal logistic regressions of alcohol abuse by
adolescents from egalitarian (n = 1430) and patriarchal (n =
764) families
Patriarchal
families,
R2 = 0.195
Egalitarian
families,
R2 = 0.243
Wald
6.063*
3.001
5.594*
7.361*
4.816*
0.008
38.871***
1.393
4.638*
2.250
70.683***
3.470
58.726***
14.268***
0.679
0.666
1.570
0.983
2.895
1.255
1.423
1.320
1.426
3.930
0.580
Wald
2.518
1.953
1.962
2.104
0.439
0.443
8.440**
1.081
3.789
0.594
26.493***
3.189
23.414***
0.002
Exp
(b)
1.584
1.405
0.818
1.185
1.997
1.302
1.565
1.217
1.620
3.493
1.009
*P < 0.050; **P < 0.010; ***P < 0.001.
boys and girls in patriarchal families are more controlled by mothers than girls in egalitarian families.
Moreover, daughters in patriarchal families spend
more time with mothers than any other group of
adolescents. These findings are consistent with
[21] the idea that in traditional families mothers
are the primary instruments of control and daughters are the primary objects of control.
The results of this study confirm that in less traditional and more egalitarian families, the process
of boys’ and girls’ socialization is less differentiated. But it is not due to increase of maternal control
of sons (as suggested by Hagan et al. [32]) or
greater paternal involvement with their daughters
(as suggested by McHale et al. [22]). Rather the
result seems to be due to more paternal involvement
with sons. This involvement is expressed in more
time spent with fathers by boys in egalitarian families than by girls in the same type of households,
stronger paternal control of sons than of daughters
in egalitarian families and stronger paternal support
perceived by boys, in general, than by girls from
egalitarian families.
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Maternal support (strong)
Moderate
Weak
Paternal support (strong)
Moderate
Weak
Maternal control (strong)
Paternal control (strong)
Time with mother (a lot)
Time with father (a lot)
Risk preferences (none)
Low
High
Gender (girls)
Exp
(b)
Thus, in families in which father’s occupational
authority is not higher than mother’s, the gender
gap in parenting practices, of both mothers and
fathers, is smaller than in patriarchal households,
and therefore, the gender gap in their teenagers’
heavy alcohol use is smaller, too. This is indicated
by comparisons of the frequency of getting drunk
by boys and girls in egalitarian and patriarchal families showing that in patriarchal families boys are at
a higher risk of alcohol abuse than girls and girls get
drunk more often when they grow up in egalitarian
families. It may suggest that parenting practices and
household type are influential on adolescent’s
behaviors, despite some basic, probably congenital
tendencies, such as stronger vulnerability to actingout behaviors of boys than girls.
According to the power-control theory, high risk
preferences are one of the key factors determining
problem behaviors across gender and family structure [31]. Results confirmed this thesis but they do
not support the idea of Hagan et al. [48] that social
factors (parenting practices) have a strong effect on
adolescents’ risk preferences. They rather suggest,
in line with psychobiological models of personality
[49, 50], that risk preferences are mainly determined by biological factors (e.g. gender).
Among parenting variables, the most significant
predictors of alcohol abuse by teenage children
were maternal control and time spent with a mother.
When gender and household type are controlled, we
found that females were more likely than boys to
get drunk. But the inclusion of gender and household type interaction modifies this result showing
more precisely higher risk of alcohol abuse for adolescents in egalitarian families with the highest risk
for girls from egalitarian families. This significant
interaction effect confirms the third hypothesis of
this study, indicating that the household type and
gender have a differential effect on alcohol abuse
after controlling for parenting practices, time spent
with parents and risk preference. The effect of family structure is further strengthened by the analysis,
which helps to reduce alternative explanations, that
the differences between the families are due to
parent’s presence or absence at home (employment
or unemployment).
K. Okulicz-Kozaryn
Implications for future research
Future research to better understand the process of
work authority transformation into family processes
is needed. This could include specific measures of
the power relationship between a mother and a fa10 of 12
ther at home, the process of decision-making and
perceptions of responsibility for raising their children. Moreover, adolescents’ perception of the
relationship between mother and father should be
controlled.
It would be interesting to verify the usefulness of
power-control theory for other problem behaviors
of teenage boys and girls, e.g. other psychoactive
substance use and abuse or delinquent behaviors.
Cross-cultural studies testing the relationship between mothers’ and fathers’ work experiences, family processes and child’s socialization in countries
with various labor traditions and economic systems
might extend our understanding of globally observed trends in risky and problem behaviors
among boys and girls.
Implications for prevention
Despite limitations, this study provides useful information for understanding sex differences and the
closing gender gap in Polish adolescents’ alcohol
use. Power-control theory seems to be a useful
guiding framework in Poland as females’ position
in the workforce is changing in important ways that
may further change the balance of family dynamics
so critical in raising children. Moreover, findings of
this study point out significant issues that could be
addressed in family-based alcohol prevention
programs.
Firstly, parents of teenagers should be aware
that the way they perform their parental roles still
counts, as it used to count when kids were younger. Hence, prevention programs strengthening
families of adolescents should be disseminated.
A good example of such a program is Strengthening Families Program (SFP 10–14), which
develops parental ability to show love and set
limits [51]. Recently, this program has been adapted for Polish families [52].
Secondly, a focus on parents, especially mothers,
to raise awareness of the importance of their supervision over adolescents behaviors and encouragement to spend more time with their teenage children
would be beneficial. Especially, mothers from egalitarian families should be encouraged to maintain
effective control over daughters in a way this con-
Downloaded from http://her.oxfordjournals.org/ at Pennsylvania State University on September 18, 2016
The findings of this study probably can be generalized for heavy alcohol use by adolescents from
other big cities in Central and East Europe. As
mentioned in the Introduction, in the second half
of the XX century the labor market was similar in
all countries under Soviet domination (especially in
Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary). There were no
major differences between men and women employment, and part-time employment or working
at home was exceptional. Moreover, the transition
processes initiated 20 years ago and are similar in
their directions and dynamics.
The most significant limitation of this study is
its cross-sectional nature. This reduces the possibility of formulating conclusions about causal
relationship between variables but does provide
some evidence that a longitudinal study may be
warranted in order to test the lead–lag relationship of parenting effects on youths’ alcohol use
behavior.
A second limitation of the study is that our dependent variable was measured with a single item.
Although behavioral measures are often measured
in this way, future research that uses a multi-item
index that includes alcohol use more generally (past
30 days), number of drinks per occasion and getting
drunk might provide a more widely distributed variable and therefore more variance to explain. Yet,
the fact that we found effects with a single item
measure suggests that the effects of parenting and
family context may be vital factors influencing
youth’s alcohol use.
Finally, we did not specifically measure power
relationships in the family as we inferred them
based on parent employment. Hence, this study
does not fill the gap in the original power-control
theory. It only indicates that this concept might
be useful for explaining adolescents’ problem behaviors and delinquency in Central and Easter
European countries.
Gender and family differences in alcohol use
trol used to be performed in traditional patriarchal
families.
Thirdly, program that focus on fathers, especially
from egalitarian families, to encourage them to have
deeper involvement in the rearing process of daughters also may be important.
Fogarty International Center, US National Institutes
of Health (5R01TW007647).
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Prof. Marc A. Zimmerman for
his comments and work on earlier drafts of this
manuscript and Megan Patrick for her work with
the later draft.
Conflict of interest statement
None declared.
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