Gender Differences in Children’s Psychological Well-Being in Mainland China: Risk and Protective Factors

Yanling Geng and Longtao He ()
Additional contact information
Yanling Geng: Northwest University
Longtao He: Southwestern University of Finance and Economics

Applied Research in Quality of Life, 2022, vol. 17, issue 5, No 16, 2743-2763

Abstract: Abstract Despite extensive research on children’s psychological well-being, little consensus about gender’s influence has been reached. In response, we examined gender differences in children’s psychological well-being in mainland China, along with the gender-based risk and protective factors and their effects on psychological well-being. For a sample, we compiled data with 2466 children aged between 10 and 15 years old derived from the China Family Panel Studies. Among our results, an independent sample t test indicated that girls in China reported higher psychological well-being than boys. A multiple regression analysis revealed that certain protective factors associated with children’s competence and protective factors in their family and school systems could promote the psychological well-being of both boys and girls, while risk factors such as academic pressure and parent–child conflict were detrimental to the psychological health of all children regardless of gender. We discuss gender differences in those risk and protective effects, and with reference to our findings, we propose social service recommendations aimed at boosting the psychological well-being of children in mainland China.

Keywords: Children in China; Psychological well-being; Gender; Risk factor; Protective factor (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11482-021-09986-8 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:ariqol:v:17:y:2022:i:5:d:10.1007_s11482-021-09986-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/journal/11482

DOI: 10.1007/s11482-021-09986-8

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Research in Quality of Life is currently edited by Daniel Shek

More articles in Applied Research in Quality of Life from Springer, International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().