Abstract
There is a growing interest in whether and how parents’ experiences of discrimination may affect their children’s health and well-being. Considering that the intergenerational influence of discrimination on child well-being is still underexplored in China, there is an urgent need to determine whether children become depressed as a result of their parents’ discrimination experiences and to identify the pathways leading to their depressive symptoms. This study examined whether and how parents’ experiences of discrimination may lead to child (aged 10–15 years) depressive symptoms using data from the 2016 China Family Panel Studies (CFPS). The analytic sample included 1554 triads comprising children and both parents. Generalized structural equation modeling (GSEM) was employed to examine whether parents’ experiences of discrimination were related to child depressive symptoms through more serious parents’ depressive symptoms and greater tension between the two parents and between parents and their children. The analysis indicated that both mothers’ and fathers’ experiences of discrimination were indirectly related to children’s depressive symptoms through fathers’ and mothers’ depressive symptoms, parent–child quarreling, and interparental quarreling. The study also showed a crossover effect from fathers’ discrimination experiences to mothers’ depressive symptoms and indicated that fathers’ experiences of discrimination could influence children’s depressive symptoms through mothers’ depressive symptoms. The findings suggested that children whose parents were likely to suffer from discrimination, from either the father’s or mother’s side, could become vulnerable. Policies and practices targeting adult discrimination need to be extended to children to enhance parents’ awareness and improve their strategies for coping with discrimination.
Highlights
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Parents’ experiences of discrimination were indirectly linked to children’s depressive symptoms in the Chinese context.
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This study selected triads comprising children and both parents and differentiated the influences of fathers’ and mothers’ experiences of discrimination.
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This study examined the crossover effect between parents and its further influence on children’s depressive symptoms.
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Data were derived from parent and child self-reports.
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Zihong Deng: conceptualization and design, data analysis and interpretation, writing original draft, editing and revising, and approval of the version to be published. Bingqin Li: conceptualization, data interpretation, editing and revising, and approval of the version to be published
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This research uses secondary data from the 2016 China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) and does not involve human participants. The CFPS received ethics approval from the Peking University Biomedical Ethics Review Committee (IRB00001052-14010). CFPS provides nationally representative data in China. The data are available on the internet (https://doi.org/10.18170/DVN/45LCSO). Researchers can download the data after signing up/logging in and applying to join the user group to download restricted data. The data do not contain individually identifiable information.
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Deng, Z., Li, B. Parents’ Experiences of Discrimination and Children’s Depressive Symptoms: Evidence from China. J Child Fam Stud 31, 349–364 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-021-02150-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-021-02150-8