Within-family influences on compliance with social-distancing measures during COVID-19 lockdowns in the United Kingdom

The compliance of adolescents, who are often unfairly portrayed as spreaders of COVID-19, with public health measures is essential for containing diseases. But does adolescents’ compliance develop independently from their parents? Using nationally representative longitudinal data and cross-lagged structural equation panel models, here I study compliance with social-distancing measures of 6,752 triplets that comprise the adolescent child (age 19), their mother and their father during two national lockdowns in the United Kingdom. The results show that adolescents have the lowest and their mothers have the highest levels of compliance, and compliance generally drops over time. Moreover, mothers, whether the child lives at home or not, and fathers, when the child lives at home, have significant influence on their adolescent child’s compliance. The child also influences their fathers’ compliance. The parental influence on adolescents’ compliance documented here suggests that family dynamics play a role in compliance with social-distancing guidelines, which may be useful for informing future health policy. This study uses data on social-distancing compliance from 19 year olds and their parents during two UK-wide lockdowns and finds evidence to suggest that mothers influence their child’s compliance with social-distancing guidelines.