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Gepubliceerd in:

01-02-2012 | Empirical Research

Sexual Orientation, Partnership Formation, and Substance Use in the Transition to Adulthood

Auteurs: Erika Laine Austin, Robert Bozick

Gepubliceerd in: Journal of Youth and Adolescence | Uitgave 2/2012

Abstract

Evidence suggests that lesbian and gay young adults use substances more frequently than their heterosexual peers. Based on the life course perspective, we argue that this difference may be due to the unavailability of marriage as a turning point in the lives of lesbian/gay young adults. We use data from a nationally representative sample of youth (N = 13,581, 52.4% female, 68.6% white, ages 18—26) to examine sexual orientation differences in substance use and explore whether these differences vary by romantic partnership formation in young adulthood. We find that the formation of more serious partnerships (e.g., cohabitation, marriage) is associated with less frequent substance use among heterosexual young adults, though this pattern does not hold for lesbian and gay young adults. We conclude that the partnership options available to lesbians and gay men do not provide the same health-protective benefits that marriage does for heterosexuals.

vorige artikel School Disengagement as a Predictor of Dropout, Delinquency, and Problem Substance Use During Adolescence and Early Adulthood

volgende artikel Sexual Attraction and Trajectories of Mental Health and Substance Use During the Transition from Adolescence to Adulthood

Despite the small sample size for lesbian and gay youth, we determined that we had ample statistical power to detect effects—particularly for the larger group differences that we estimated at Wave 3. The only significant difference at Wave 1 was for hard drug use and had .54 statistical power assuming a two population sample comparison. The significant differences at Wave 3 for both hard drug use and marijuana use had .99 statistical power assuming a two population sample comparison.

In accord with the broader literature in the sociology of gender and sexuality, we suspect that developmental trajectories vary both by gender and sexual orientation. Unfortunately, the small cell sizes preclude a more comprehensive look at these differences. In preliminary analyses not shown, we estimated our models while including a gender × partnership multiplicative interaction term. Though none reached statistical significance, there were large standard errors due to the low statistical power. Additional analyses comparing male-only and female-only models further demonstrated comparable effects of partnership formation on substance use for both groups. Without being able to determine whether these differences are truly null or if they reflect a type II error, we do not present these results nor are we able to discuss differences as they relate to the gender with confidence.

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Titel: Sexual Orientation, Partnership Formation, and Substance Use in the Transition to Adulthood
Auteurs: Erika Laine Austin
Robert Bozick
Publicatiedatum: 01-02-2012
Uitgeverij: Springer US
Gepubliceerd in: Journal of Youth and Adolescence / Uitgave 2/2012
Print ISSN: 0047-2891
Elektronisch ISSN: 1573-6601
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-011-9653-7

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