U.S. scientists are studying how poverty and other negative situations affect the formation of adult behaviors in children.
Duke University researchers used ethnographic studies of children and adolescents growing up in low-income families to provide insight into a seldom-studied area of child development — so-called childhood adultification — the process by which children prematurely assume adult roles.
Eldest children in a family are more likely to become adultified than their younger siblings, said study author Linda Burton. Large differences can also be seen in the types of adultified roles taken on by male and female adolescents.
She said boys are more likely to become primary or secondary breadwinners and are also more likely to become confidants to their mothers, while girls are more likely to take on homemaking and care-taking roles.
The exception, said Burton, is that African-American boys are also more likely to take on domestic roles in families compared with Hispanic and Caucasian males.
The study is detailed in the journal Family Relations.
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