Gender Inequality, Parental Discipline, and Child Aggression
In Low and Middle Income Countries
Introduction
Children in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are disproportionately at risk of not meeting their developmental potential.
Parental discipline can promote and hinder child outcomes; however, little research examines how discipline interacts with contextual factors to predict child outcomes in LMICs.
Methods
Using data from 208,156 households with children between 36-59 months (50.5% male) across 63 countries, this study examined whether interactions between gender inequality and discipline (shouting, spanking, beating, verbal reasoning) predicted child aggression.
Results
Results showed aggression was higher in countries with high gender inequality. Contrary to expectations from theory associations between discipline and child aggression were weaker in countries where gender inequality was higher.
Conclusions
Interventions to improve parenting and child well being need to have a multilevel conceptualization, and to focus on both parenting, and reducing gender inequality at a country level.
