Precocious and Problematic? The Consequences of Youth Violent Victimization for Adolescent Sexual Behavior

PURPOSE

Violent victimization is concentrated in adolescence and is disruptive to both the timing and sequencing of key life course transitions that occur during this developmental stage. Drawing on recent work establishing the interpersonal consequences of youth victimization, we examined the effect of violent victimization on adolescents' timing of sexual debut and involvement in additional sexual risk behaviors (multiple sexual partnering and inconsistent contraceptive use).

METHODS

This study relied on secondary data analysis of 10,070 youth from four waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health). To predict sexual debut and subsequent sexual risk-taking, analyses were limited to youth not yet sexually active at their wave I interview.

RESULTS

Findings from Cox proportional hazards models, negative binomial regression, and repeated measures ordinal logistic regression showed that adolescent victims of violence initiated sex sooner than non-victims and accumulated more sexual partners, but patterns varied by age at victimization. Youth victimized in late adolescence displayed an accelerated trajectory of sexual activity while youth victimized in early adolescence were less likely to debut or engage in other sexual risk behaviors (although younger victims were more likely to engage in other deviant activities).

CONCLUSION

Sexual activity is a normative part of adolescent development, yet this study finds that violent victimization may disrupt the timing of this life course task, exacerbating deviant risk-taking and undermining youths' subsequent well-being. This study also highlights the importance of life course criminology's attention to timing in lives, given that the consequences of victimization varied by the age when it occurred.

The impact of adolescent risk behavior on partner relationships

Prior literature suggests that involvement in adolescent risk behaviors will have short- and long-term consequences that disrupt the orderly flow of later development, including impacts on patterns of partner relationships. In this study, we explore how adolescent involvement in delinquency, drug use, and sexual behavior at an early age affects the likelihood and timing of both marriage and cohabitation using a sample from the Rochester Youth Development Study. We also examine the direct effects of dropping out of high school, teenage parenthood, and financial stress during emerging adulthood as well as their potential role as mediators of the relationships between adolescent risk behaviors and partnering for both males and females. Overall, there is not very strong support for a direct relationship between adolescent delinquency, drug use, or early sexual behavior and patterns of partner formation. In contrast, the more proximal relationships, indicated by precocious transitions to adulthood and financial instability, are more consistently related to partner formation. These findings support models of cumulative disadvantage: early adolescent problem behaviors are weakly related to partner formation, but appear to set in motion cascading consequences that influence the transition to adulthood and, in turn, these more proximal variables are more consistently related to partner formation.