Socioeconomic and Gender Inequalities, Country-Level Social Support, Face-to-Face Bullying and Cyberbullying Victimisation Among Adolescents : a Multilevel Cross-National Study

Prior research shows that socioeconomic conditions (such as family socioeconomic status, income and gender inequalities) influence aggressive behaviours and victimisation across societies . Nevertheless, it is not well known how such structural level factors interact with country-level social support to influence face-to-face and cyberbullying victimisation across countries. Thus, the aim of the present study was to: 1) examine the association of family socioeconomic status (FSES) with face-to-face bullying and cyberbullying victimisation; 2) analyse how gender inequality relates to face-to-face bullying and cyberbullying victimisation; 3) examine how income inequality relates to face-to-face bullying and cyberbullying victimisation; and 4) examine how country-level social support moderates such associations . The study merged individual data from 2013/14 Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children (HBSC) Survey with country-level data from the United Nations Development Programme and International Labour Organisation . Multilevel binary logistic regression models were used to examine the relationships between variables . The study found that odds of face-to-face bullying and cyberbullying victimisation are higher among adolescents with low family socioeconomic status . However, the impact of low family socioeconomic status on bullying victimisation is lessened in nations with higher social support . Adolescents who live in countries with greater levels of income inequality are at higher risk of being victims of face-to-face bullying and cyberbullying . The results suggest that odds of bullying victimisation decrease as values of income inequality decrease in countries with higher social support . Additionally, the results reveal that odds of face-to-face bullying and cyberbullying victimisation are higher in countries with higher levels of gender inequality, especially among female adolescents. Thus, the effects of bullying victimisation on adolescents (especially, among females) are exacerbated in countries that do not provide adequate social support . In this case, low levels of social support cannot protect adolescents from victimisation by bullying across countries