PURPOSE: Social patterns in bullying show consistent gender differences in adolescent perpetration and victimization with large cross-national variations. Previous research shows associations between societal gender inequality and gender differences in some violent behaviors in adolescents. Therefore, there is a need to go beyond individual associations and use a more social ecological perspective when examining gender differences in bullying behaviors. The aim of the present study was twofold: (1) to explore cross-national gender differences in bullying behaviors and (2) to examine whether national-level gender inequality relates to gender differences in adolescent bullying behaviors. METHODS: Traditional bullying and cyberbullying were measured in 11-year-olds to 15-year-olds in the 2017/18 Health Behaviour in School-aged Children study (n = 200,423). We linked individual data to national gender inequality (Gender Inequality Index, 2018) in 46 countries and tested their association using mixed-effects (multilevel) logistic regression models. RESULTS: Large cross-national variations were observed in gender differences in bullying. Boys had higher odds of perpetrating both traditional and cyberbullying and victimization by traditional bullying than girls. Greater gender inequality at country level was associated with heightened gender differences in traditional bullying. In contrast, lower gender inequality was associated with larger gender differences for cyber victimization. DISCUSSION: Societal gender inequality relates to adolescents' involvement in bullying and gendered patterns in bullying. Public health policy should target societal factors that have an impact on young people's behavior.

CHILD School of Learning and Communication Jönköping University Sweden Jönköping Sweden

Department of Behavioural Sciences and Learning Linköping University Linköping Sweden

Department of Criminology Bar Ilan University Ramat Gan Israel

Department of Economic and Regional Development Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences Athens Greece

Department of Environmental Health Faculty of Health Sciences Jagiellonian University Krakow Poland

Department of Health Sciences Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus Senftenberg Germany

Department of Psychology Queen's University Kingston Ontario Canada

Discipline of Children's Studies School of Education NUI Galway Galway Ireland

Institute for Health and Social Policy McGill University Montreal Quebec Canada

Sts Cyril and Methodius Faculty of Theology Olomouc University Social Health Institute Palacky University in Olomouc Olomouc Czech Republic; Department of Developmental Psychology and Socialisation University of Padova Padova Italy; Department of Sociology Trinity College Dublin Dublin Ireland

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