The Riskiest of Them All: Parental Supervision and Adolescent Behaviors

Abstract

Adolescents with higher parental supervision are associated with lower participation in health risk behaviors. Using weekly hour measurements of supervision derived from time diaries, I confirm this general negative relationship with a sample of 10 to 25 years old from the PSID-CDS and PSID-TA. Parental supervision from fathers and mothers are also looked at separately and are entered into the model in lagged forms to avoid endoegeneity bias. Results from household and individual fixed effects underline the relative importance of fathers in mitigating cigarette smoking in the past month, regularly alcohol drinking in the past year, and marijuana smoking in the past month. The research highlights the need to account for unobserved heterogeneity and supports the idea of looking at the different roles each parent play in affecting child outcomes.