Parental Education, Parenting Practices, and Adolescent Depression in China

• In Event: Children and Youth Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 4: Global Educational Stratification and "Shadow" Schooling

Abstract

Background: Over the past decade, depression levels among Chinese adolescents have been rising. Much attention has focused on the impact of high parental expectations and intensive educational investment by well-educated parents, while less attention has been given to the parent–child relationship, which is fundamental to the development of emotion regulation and interpersonal skills. Objectives: This study aims to compare depression levels of adolescents across groups defined by parental education, to assess the impact of parental investment and involvement in education and the quality of parent-child relationship on adolescent depression, and to identify the key contributors to the association between parental education and adolescent depression in China. Methods: We employed a longitudinal design to analyze the cumulative effect of parenting practices on risk of depression among adolescence. Unbalanced panel data on 1516 adolescents collected every two years from 2010 to 2022 by the China Family Panel Study (CFPS) were utilized. Depressive symptoms were measured by the 8-item Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CESD-8) in 2022. Mean scores for several variables—education costs, tutoring time by family members, frequency of parent-child friendly communication, and parent–child conflicts—were calculated using data collected from 2010 to 2022 to reflect the enduring level of parenting practices over the study period. Generalized Estimating Equation models were used to examine the relationship between parental education, parenting practices, and adolescent depression. Results: Higher parental education was associated with fewer depressive symptoms among adolescents. Friendly parent–child communication appeared protective against adolescent depression, while parent–child conflict showed a detrimental effect. Education costs and tutoring by family members neither increase nor decrease depressive symptoms among adolescents. Conclusion: The quality of the parent–child relationship appears to be a more important protective factor against adolescent depression than parental education involvement or financial investment in education.

Authors

• Tianli Liu, Institute of Population Research, Peking University

• Shiyuan Li

• Xu Deng