Pasqualini, MartaDe Rose, Alessandra2024-04-222024-04-222020Pasqualini M, De Rose A. Parent-child communication about sex and romantic feelings: does having older siblings make a difference? Genus. 2020 Dec;76(1):24. DOI: 10.1186/s41118-020-00097-02035-5556http://hdl.handle.net/10230/59863Parental involvement in sex education and the quality of parent-child communication about romantic feelings appear to have a protective effect on adolescent sexual behaviours. However, little research has been conducted on the role played by birth order in the level of parental involvement in sex education. This is the first study seeking to address if the quality of parent-child communication about sex and romantic sentiments differs according to whether respondents have—or do not have—older siblings in Italy. Hypotheses concerning the role of sib-ship gender composition have been tested in order to explain potential intervening mechanisms. Data were drawn from the Sexual and Emotional Life of Youths survey (SELFY), a cross-sectional survey conducted in 2000 and in 2017 on Italian university students (N = 12,265). Our findings identify later-born children as the least likely to confide in parents. Although boys are generally less likely to talk to parents than girls, respondent gender does not moderate the effect of birth order. Instead, sib-ship gender composition plays a role: having grown up with at least one same-gender sibling is associated with a lower communication with parents about intimate matters. This study suggests that growing up with siblings, namely with same-gender siblings, make a difference in parent-child communication and this should be considered while evaluating the role of parental involvement in adolescent sexual education.application/pdfengThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.Comunicació en la famíliaPares i fillsEducació sexualinfo:eu-repo/semantics/articlehttp://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s41118-020-00097-0info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess