Gender Differences and Adolescent Risks

Judith Davey

This paper examines characteristics and behaviour that are construed as posing risks to the well-being of adolescents in New Zealand. It reviews recent New Zealand research findings on a range of risk factors, and concentrates on the differential incidence and impacts of these risks on males and females. The risk factors include:

• mental health and behaviour risks, ranging from behavioural and conduct problems to diagnosed clinically mental health disorders, as well as offending against the law;
• health risks, including smoking, cannabis, alcohol and other drug use;
• physical risks, including accidental and intentional injury and death, suicide, attempted suicide, sexual risk, abuse and unsafe sexual behaviour; and
• economic risks, including low income and unemployment.

Linkages between risk factors and other characteristics show that a set of individual, social and family conditions appear to increase individual susceptibility to a wide range of adolescent disorders and adjustment problems, which are frequently correlated or "co-morbid". The paper argues that, for adolescents, gender differences in terms of susceptibility to risk are significant and relevant to policy.