Marital Quality and Parent-Adolescent Relationships: Effects on Sexual Activity Among Adolescents and Young Adults

摘要

The link between growing up outside of an intact family, and the likelihood of engaging in risky sexual behaviors as an adolescent has been explored extensively. However, there are fewer studies examining the age of onset of sexual activity and the likelihood of risky sexual behaviors among adolescents within intact families, specifically married-parent families, and what elements of married-parent families seem to function as protective factors for adolescents. This study takes an extensive look at relationship characteristics within married-parent families--that is, the parent marital relationship, the youth-parent relationship, and the interaction of the two-- to identify the family context that might influence adolescents sexual activity. Parental marital relationships were characterized both with respect to level of supportive qualities as well as degree of conflict, and the youth's relationship with each parent was characterized as positive or negative.