Despite extensive research on bullying perpetration, relatively less attention has been paid to the associations between household-level factors and adolescent bullying. This study examined the associations between family labor division and adolescent bullying perpetration as well as the roles of gender bias and fixed mindset in these associations. We also explored gender differences in these associations. We analyzed data from 52,751 adolescents (aged 10–16) across 15 countries from the 2023 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development Survey on Social and Emotional Skills. Using latent class analysis, we identified four patterns of family labor division: egalitarian (32.87%), transitional (45.24%), gender-specialized (16.63%), and disengaged (5.27%). Sequential mediation analyses with gender moderation revealed that relative to adolescents in the egalitarian pattern, those in the disengaged pattern reported elevated bullying perpetration. Adolescents in the transitional and gender-specialized patterns reported higher gender bias, which was substantially associated with both fixed mindset and bullying perpetration. Indirect associations between family labor patterns and bullying operated primarily through gender bias for the gender-specialized and transitional patterns, whereas the disengaged pattern operated primarily through fixed mindset. Gender moderated these psychological pathways, with gender bias showing stronger associations with bullying among boys and adolescents identifying as other gender compared to girls, whereas fixed mindset showed stronger associations among boys. These findings indicate that unequal family labor division patterns are associated with adolescent bullying through psychological mechanisms, particularly among boys, suggesting that prevention programs should address family-level dynamics.
Zheng et al. (Sun,) studied this question.