Effects of Father-Adolescent and Mother-Adolescent Relationships on Depressive Symptoms among Chinese Early Adolescents

Qiongwen Zhang, Yangu Pan (), Yanghong Chen, Wei Liu, Li Wang and Jason A. Jean
Additional contact information
Qiongwen Zhang: Southwestern University of Finance and Economics
Yangu Pan: Southwestern University of Finance and Economics
Yanghong Chen: Southwestern University of Finance and Economics
Wei Liu: Sichuan Academy of Social Sciences
Li Wang: Southwestern University of Finance and Economics
Jason A. Jean: Southwestern University of Finance and Economics

Applied Research in Quality of Life, 2022, vol. 17, issue 5, No 12, 2657-2672

Abstract: Abstract Parent–adolescent relationships play an important role in protecting adolescents from depressive symptoms. However, there are no consistent conclusions about the extent to which fathers and mothers uniquely contribute to adolescents’ depressive symptoms. The present study aimed to acquire knowledge in this research area in two ways. First, this study separated the potential impacts of father–child and mother–child relationships on depressive symptoms in Chinese adolescents. Second, this study used a longitudinal design with nationally representative samples from the China Education Panel Survey. A total of 8794 middle school students in grade 7 completed measures of father–adolescent and mother–adolescent relationships, and depressive symptoms twice (T1 and T2; one-year interval). Results indicated that both positive father–adolescent and mother–adolescent relationships had negative effects on depressive symptoms in female adolescents. However, positive father-adolescent, not mother-adolescent, relationships had a negative effect on depressive symptoms in male adolescents. These findings suggest that positive parent–adolescent relationships could reduce early adolescents’ depressive symptoms, but positive father–adolescent and mother–adolescent relationships might have different protective effects on early adolescents’ depressive symptoms among male and female adolescents in China.

Keywords: father-adolescent relationship; mother-adolescent relationship; depressive symptoms; early adolescents; Chinese; longitudinal study (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11482-021-09997-5 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_s11482-021-09997-5

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

DOI: 10.1007/s11482-021-09997-5

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 ().