Parental Mental Health and Child Well-Being in Japan

• In Event: 1552 - Section on Asia and Asian America Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 min): Table 11: Inequalities in Japan

Abstract

Much of the early emotional and intellectual development of children takes place in the home. As such, families are of special interest in understanding various child outcomes. Understanding child behavior is particularly important because early behavioral issues can lead to negative outcomes that persist into adulthood. Amongst the various family-related characteristics that can affect children, parent psychological well-being has proved to have direct effects on child behavioral outcomes. While there have been many studies describing the relationship between parent psychological health and child behavior in the US, the nature of this relationship in non-Western countries has yet to be thoroughly explored. Japan in particular is an interesting context to consider this relationship due to Japan’s unique culture. Utilizing regression analysis, this study examines the relationship between paternal and maternal psychological health and child behavioral outcomes using two complementary longitudinal datasets from Japan (JCPS and JHPS). We find that maternal and not paternal psychological well-being is associated with child internalizing and externalizing behavioral problems, even when statistically adjusting for other common explanatory variables. Further research on this relationship can help discover the universality of US-based findings related to paternal and maternal psychological health and child behavior.

Authors

• Jared M. Poff, Brigham Young University

• Jonathan A. Jarvis, Brigham Young University-Provo

• Kevin Shafer, Brigham Young University-Provo

• Mikaela Dufur, Brigham Young University-Provo