Substance Use among Adolescents with and without a Migration Background: Does the Homophily in Social Ties Matter?

Marta Pasqualini, Università di Perugia
Wanli Nie , Universitat Pompeu Fabra

A wider identification of determinants of health risky behaviours of adolescents with a migration background is still under-studied even if migrants’ health and behaviours represent an important issue of multicultural societies. Specifically, this study aims to investigate the role of homphily in the ethnic composition of adolescents’ friendship as a determinant of ethnic differences in using cannabis, smoking tobacco and binge drinking. Data were drawn from the UK Millennium Cohort Study (MCS). This study seeks to contribute to the literature, by providing new evidence on the role of ethnic composition of social ties in encouraging or, on the contrary, discouraging adolescents born in the UK with a pure, a mixed or a non-migration background from taking risky behaviours.

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 Presented in Session 76. Children of Immigrants