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(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- A new study into why children raised in homes without a biological father have sex earlier than children raised in traditional nuclear families challenges traditional explanations.
Among traditional explanations are that early childhood stress accelerates children's physical development, that children who see their parents dating may start dating earlier, and that it's harder for a single parent to monitor and supervise children's activities. All of these are environmental explanations.
"Our study found that the association between fathers' absence and children's sexuality is best explained by genetic influences, rather than by environmental theories alone," study leader Jane Mendle, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Oregon, was quoted as saying.
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Mendle and her colleagues looked at more than 1,000 cousins, aged 14 and older, from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. The study tested for genetic influences as well as environmental factors such as poverty, educational opportunities, and religion.
It compared children who were related in different ways to each other, and who differed in whether they had lived with their fathers. The more genes the children shared, the more similar their ages of first intercourseregardless of whether the children personally had an absent father. This finding, the researchers say, suggests that environmental theories don't fully explain the puzzle. Instead, genetic influence can help us understand the tie between fathers' absence and early sex.
"While there's clearly no such thing as a 'father absence gene,' there are genetic contributions to traits in both moms and dads that increase the likelihood of earlier sexual behavior in their children," noted Mendle. "These include impulsivity, substance use and abuse, argumentativeness, and sensation seeking.
"These traits get passed down from parents to children, Mendle explained, resulting in a situation known as 'passive gene-environment correlation,' because the same genetic factors that influence when children first have intercourse also affect the likelihood of their growing up in a home without a dad."
SOURCE: Child Development, September/October 2009
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