Long-term protective effects of adolescent family relations: Gendered trajectory of depression into adulthood

Citation

Chen, Ping & Harris, Kathleen Mullan (2018). Long-term protective effects of adolescent family relations: Gendered trajectory of depression into adulthood. Annual Meeting of the Population Association of America. Denver, CO.

Abstract

Previous cross-sectional studies with regional or small community samples have found that positive parent-child relations can have short-term protective effects against depression in children and adolescents. Our study uses nationally-representative data from Add Health and a developmental and longitudinal perspective to examine the long-term protective effects of adolescent family relations and the gender-specific trajectories of depression into adulthood. We use two composite measures, family cohesion, and lack of parent-child conflict, to investigate how trajectories of depression vary among males and females by positive levels of family relations over the twenty-year life course that spans from early adolescence to mid-adulthood. Our results suggest that positive adolescent family relations have long-term protective effects for psychological well-being among both males and females over the life course. In growth-curve models we examine whether several environmental protective/risk factors explain differences in the age-related patterns of depressive symptoms due to contrasting levels of adolescent family relations.

URL

https://paa.confex.com/paa/2018/webprogrampreliminary/Paper22665.html

Keyword(s)

family adolescent family relations adolescence

Reference Type

Conference proceeding

Book Title

Annual Meeting of the Population Association of America

Series Title

Family contexts and well-being in youth and early adulthood

Author(s)

Chen, Ping
Harris, Kathleen Mullan

Year Published

2018

City of Publication

Denver, CO

Reference ID

8294