Prácticas de crianza de riesgo y su asociación con factores socioeconómicos: Evidencia para Uruguay

Several studies have been conducted with the aim of analyzing the relationship between parenting practices and socioeconomic status (Bradley and Corwyn, 2002; Cheevers, Doyle and McNamara, 2010). This research aims to contribute to this branch of literature studying the association between parenting practices of risk and different socioeconomic factors for the uruguayan case, understanding parenting practices of risk as those that limit the development of the child. Using data from the Survey of Nutrition, Child Development and Health (Encuesta de Nutrición, Desarrollo Infantil y Salud -ENDIS for its acronym in Spanish) carried out among households in urban areas involving children from 0 to 3 years, a risk index was constructed based on the methodology of Alkire and Foster (2008), and thus establishing the associations discussed above. The index contains eight dimensions: limits and everyday rules, parental cooperation and consistency in parenting, parental involvement in decision-making, parenting practices related to the control of behavior, affective context of parenting, parental discrimination between boys and girls, early development of autonomy and degree of social interaction of the child. The dimensions that showed higher proportion of individuals without risk answers were parental discrimination between girls and boys and degree of social interaction of the child. Likewise, there is higher relative risk weight in the dimensions parental participation in decision-making and emotional context of parenting. Regarding the characteristics of the mother, a negative relationship is found between risk in parenting practice and the age at birth, the educational level of the mother, whether the mother had received physical abuse during childhood, and the flexibility of religious practice. Moreover, an increase in risk is observed when the mother is unemployed, has suffered psychological disorders or the pregnancy was not desired. As for the characteristics of the child, higher risk is associated with male gender, whereas there are no significant differences with increasing age of the child. Finally, the risk in parenting practice is higher with increasing number of children under 3 years of age living in the household, the lower the income per capita of the household, the absence of one parent and the location of the household outside the capital city.