The Community Context of Family Structure and Adolescent Drug Use

• Published date: 01 May 2002
• Author: John P. Hoffmann
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2002.00314.x
• Date: 01 May 2002

Journal of Marriage and Family 64 (May 2002): 314–330

314

J

OHN

P. H

OFFMANN

Brigham Young University

l

The Community Context of Family Structure and

Adolescent Drug Use

Using data from the National Educational Lon-

gitudinal Study (NELS), this article investigates a

number of hypotheses used to explain the rela-

tionship between family structure and adolescent

drug use. In particular, using linked community-

level data, an explicit examination of hypotheses

drawn from a community-context model is con-

ducted. These hypotheses posit that the impact of

family structure on adolescent behavior is, in part,

explained by the different types of communities

within which families reside and that community

characteristics moderate the impact of family

structure on drug use. The results of multilevel

regression models fail to support these hypothe-

ses; adolescents who reside in single-parent or

stepparent families are at heightened risk of drug

use irrespective of community context. Moreover,

adolescents who reside in single father families

are at risk of both higher levels of use and in-

creasing use over time. A signif‌icant community-

level effect involves jobless men: Adolescents are

at increased risk of drug use if they reside in com-

munities with a higher proportion of unemployed

and out-of-workforce men.

Although the prevalence of some forms of ado-

lescent drug use has decreased in recent years

(Johnston, O’Malley, & Bachman, 2000), the eti-

ology of use continues to be an important research

Department of Sociology, 844 SWKT,Brigham Young Uni-

versity, Provo, UT 84602 (JohnpHoffmann@byu.edu).

Key Words: adolescent drug use, community context, family

structure.

topic. Adolescents who use drugs are at height-

ened risk of low academic achievement, high

school dropout, early sexual initiation, and marital

disruption in adulthood (Newcomb & Bentler,

1988). An interesting parallel is that these detri-

mental outcomes are also linked to family struc-

ture. In fact, the diverse effects of family structure

on a host of social and behavioral outcomes

makes it a continuing source of social science re-

search. For example, a substantial body of litera-

ture indicates that living with a biological mother

and father reduces the risk of delinquent behavior

(Matsueda & Heimer, 1987), school dropout

(Astone & McLanahan, 1994), and adolescent

drug use (Flewelling & Bauman, 1990; Hoffmann

& Johnson, 1998; Thomas, Farrell, & Barnes,

1996). Most early studies compared single-parent

and two-parent families and determined that the

former were detrimental for several adolescent

outcomes. However, the past 15 years or so have

seen more ref‌ined research directed toward (a)

more specif‌ic measures of family structure and (b)

exploring the conceptual links between family

structure and adolescent behavior.

Many contemporary studies of family structure

have addressed differences among adolescents

from single-parent, stepparent, and two-biologi-

cal-parent families. This more nuanced attention

is driven partly by the rapid increase of stepparent

and single-father families (Bianchi, 1995; Ihinger-

Tallman, & Pasley, 1997). Moreover, as large data

sets with suff‌icient numbers of various family

types (e.g., father-stepmother) have become avail-

able researchers have studied not only the number

315Community Context of Family Structure

of parents but also the gender of the parent. A

common hypothesis is that living with a same-sex

parent reduces the risk of detrimental outcomes.

Although recent studies f‌ind little support for this

same-sex hypothesis (Downey, Ainsworth-Dar-

nell, & Dufur, 1998; Powell & Downey, 1997), a

consensus is emerging that adolescents residing

with stepparents may be at higher risk than ado-

lescents in other types of families of various forms

of deviant behavior, including drug use (Hoff-

mann & Johnson, 1998; Ihinger-Tallman & Pas-

ley, 1997).

The second trend involves the search for con-

ceptual links between family structure and ado-

lescent outcomes. A variety of studies show that

part of the family structure effect is attributable to

parent-child relations, differences in family in-

come, and residential mobility. For instance, the

heightened risk of school dropout among adoles-

cents in single-mother families is attributable

largely to low income in these families, thus sup-

porting an economic resources explanation of

family structure effects (McLanahan & Booth,

1989). On average, stepparent families do not

have fewer economic resources than other fami-

lies (Astone & McLanahan, 1994; Downey, 1995;

McLanahan & Sandefur, 1994). However, parent-

child interaction is attenuated in stepparent

families; thus, adolescents are at higher risk of

misbehavior. Stepparent families also tend to

move more often than two-biological-parent fam-

ilies. Frequent moves are associated with both

drug use and school dropout (DeWit, 1998; Swan-

son & Schneider, 1999) and may also explain

much of the variability in these behaviors among

adolescents in stepparent families (McLanahan &

Sandefur, 1994). Nevertheless, family structure

continues to exert a signif‌icant impact on some

types of adolescent behavior, such as drug use,

even after one controls for the effects of family

income, family relations, residential mobility, and

a host of other variables (e.g., Downey et al.,

1998; Hoffmann & Johnson, 1998).

The inability of various economic and social

characteristics to explain family structure effects

on drug use was highlighted in a recent study by

Hoffmann and Johnson (1998). Using a large sam-

ple from the National Household Survey on Drug

Abuse (NHSDA), they found that adolescents

who resided with a biological father and mother

were at lower risk of marijuana and other drug

use than adolescents who reside with single par-

ents or stepparents. Adolescents who resided with

a single father or a father-stepmother were at es-

pecially high risk of drug use, including more se-

rious forms of problem use. Controlling for the

effects of family income and family moves did not

fully attenuate differences among family types in

the likelihood of drug use. Hence, Hoffmann and

Johnson (1998) concluded that hypotheses involv-

ing economic resources or mobility do not suff‌i-

ciently explain the effects of family structure on

adolescent drug use.

T

HE

C

OMMUNITY

C

ONTEXT OF

F

AMILY

S

TRUCTURE

A novel approach that may help explain the im-

pact of family structure on adolescent behaviors

concerns its community context. This model, sum-

marized in its most basic form by McLanahan and

Sandefur (1994), begins with the observation that

family types are not distributed randomly in the

United States (see also McLanahan, 1985; Mc-

Lanahan & Booth, 1989). Families that live in bet-

ter-off communities have a host of extrafamilial

resources to draw upon in raising children, so the

community is seen as a key characteristic that af-

fects whether adolescents from different types of

families behave in deviant or normative ways.

Single parents—in particular single mothers—of-

ten do not have the resources to live in well-off

communities and are less able than other parents

to move to more f‌inancially secure areas; thus,

their ability to raise children may be hampered

(Amato & Booth, 1997; South & Crowder, 1998).

Two-parent families are usually in better f‌inancial

situations than single-parent families; thus, they

are allowed much more f‌lexibility about where to

live.

A community context model actually implies

several distinct hypotheses that may explain the

relationship between family structure and adoles-

cent drug use. First, a mediating hypothesis sug-

gests that community characteristics affect family

structure in particular ways, which then leads to

drug use. For instance, perhaps resource-poor

communities—which have often been labeled

‘‘socially disorganized’’—are more likely to gen-

erate divorce and single parenthood, and it is res-

idence in the resultant single-parent families that

affects drug use. A more plausible process, how-

ever, is that single-parent families are constrained

in their choice of communities and often must live

in resource-poor areas for economic reasons.

Hence a selection effect determines the distribu-

tion of family structures and, ultimately, whether

there is any inf‌luence on adolescent behavior. Un-