Original article
Income Inequality and School Bullying: Multilevel Study of Adolescents in 37 Countries

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2009.04.004Get rights and content

Abstract

Purpose

To examine the association between income inequality and school bullying in an international sample of preadolescents and to test for mediation of this association by the availability of social support from families, peers, and schools.

Methods

The study used economic data from the 2006 United Nations Development Program Human Development Report and survey data from the 2005/2006 Health Behavior in School-aged Children (HBSC) study which included 66,910 11-year-olds in 37 countries. Ecological correlations tested associations between income inequality and bullying among countries. Multilevel linear and ordinal regression analyses tested the effects of income inequality on perceived social support and bullying others at school.

Results

Income inequality was associated with rates of bullying among the 37 countries (r = .62). Multilevel analyses indicated that each standard deviation increase in income inequality corresponded with more frequent bullying by males (odds ratio = 1.17) and females (odds ratio = 1.24), less family support and school support but more peer support. Social support from families and schools was associated with less bullying after differences in wealth were taken into account; however, social support did not account for the association between income inequality and bullying.

Conclusions

Countries with high income inequality have more school bullying among preadolescents than countries with low income inequality. Further study is needed to understand the mechanisms that account for this association. Findings suggest that adolescents in areas of wide income inequality—not only those in deprived schools and neighborhoods— should be a focus of antibullying campaigns.

Section snippets

Sample

Survey data were collected from 11-year-olds in the 2006 HBSC study (www.hbsc.org). The aim of the HBSC study was to identify behaviors and social factors that influence physical and psychosocial health in youth. Nationally representative samples of students in grades 7, 9, and 11 participated in 42 countries and regions in Europe, North America, and Israel. The average participation rate by students was 81.6% (SD = 12.0%), ranging from 40.6% (Germany) to 97.3% (Lithuania). Survey procedures

Results

Ecological correlations tested associations between wealth, income inequality, mean levels of social support, and the percentage of respondents who bullied others at school. As shown in Table 2, income inequality was significantly correlated with bullying among males, r (36) = .58, p < .01, and among females, r (36) = .64, p < .01. Figure 1 is a scatterplot of this relationship involving males and females, r (36) = .62, p < .01. As shown in this figure, the percentage of respondents who bullied

Discussion

An association was found between country-level income inequality and school bullying. The association was similar in males and females and significant after differences in country wealth and individual wealth were taken into account. The results were consistent with studies on income inequality and violence among adults [17], [20], [23], [24] and replicated the ecological associations reported by Pickett and Wilkinson [29] in their study of income inequality and children's involvement in

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by grants from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council awarded to the first author. The authors thank Pernille Due, Ron Iannotti, Richard Wilkinson, and Kate Pickett for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article.

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