Teenage Risky Behavior and Parental Supervision: The Unintended Consequences of Multiple Shifts School Systems

Abstract

We study the relationship between attending high school at night and the probability of engaging in risky behavior, such as having unsafe sex or consuming substances. To address potential endogeneity concerns we take advantage of a random assignment of high school students to daytime and night shifts in the city of Buenos Aires. Using an original survey on students attending their last year of high school, we find that girls attending high school in the evening start having sex at an earlier age and present a higher probability of getting an abortion. We find no significant differences for substance use. Our experimental approach suggests that the link between high school shift and risky behavior is causal. Results hold when we use an alternative sample of alumni. Finally, we report evidence that the lack of parental supervision is the mechanism underlying our results. (JEL I12, I25, J13) * We thank

Relative age for grade and adolescent risky health behavior

“…Exceptions are Elsner and Isphording (2018) who find that a higher achievement rank in high school leads to less risky behavior and Dincer et al (2014) and Reynoso and Rossi (2019) who also find some support that length and time of day of education matters for risky sex. I contribute by…”

Risky Behaviours of High School Students and School Counsellors’ Interventions

“…The attitude of parents towards the tendency to hide risky behaviors observed in children is an important indicator of this. While the positive effect of parental supervision on risky behaviors is known (Reynoso & Rossi, 2019), it is clear that these attitudes of parents will complicate the process. Psychological counselors attribute this to parents' efforts to protect children from disciplinary action.…”

Effects of School Shift Change on Sleep and Academic Performance: A Quasi-Experimental Evaluation for Adolescent Students in Brazil

“…Indeed, the school start time literature is fairly abundant for developed countries, such as the United States and European countries; in spite of that, only a small part of these studies is based on exogenous changes in school start times and, therefore, is able to establish causal links between start time and academic performance. For developing countries, evidence is even more scarce, if not inexistent (as far as we know), for countries like Brazil (Cardenas & Cruz, 2017;Arrona-Palacios & Dí az-Morales, 2018, Reynoso & Rossi, 2019.…”

“…By reviewing the related literature for developing countries, we found four main studies, being three for Mexico and one for Argentina. Reynoso & Rossi (2019), by exploring a random allocation of students between morning, afternoon, and night shifts at a large high school in Buenos Aires, Argentina, find that night-time students are more likely to engage in risky behaviors. Female adolescents allocated to the night shift have higher chances of having sex earlier and undergoing abortions, and the lack of parental supervision would be the main mechanism explaining these findings.…”