Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Parental psychological well-being and parental emotional warmth as mediators of the relationship between family socioeconomic status and children’s life satisfaction

  • Published:
Current Psychology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the psychological mechanisms underlying the relationship between family socioeconomic status (SES) and life satisfaction among Chinese children based on Conger's family stress theory model. 293 Chinese children (mean age = 10.34 years, SD = 0.80) completed self-reports on parental emotional warmth and life satisfaction, whereas parents reported on family SES and psychological well-being. Multiple mediation analyses revealed that the association between family socioeconomic status and life satisfaction was subsequently mediated by parental psychological well-being and parental emotional warmth. Parents from families with a low SES were more likely to have less psychological well-being, which significantly predicted a low level of parental emotional warmth and negatively affected children's life satisfaction.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1

Similar content being viewed by others

Data availability statement

There are no linked research data sets for this submission. Data will be made available on request.

References

  • Bornstein, M. H., & Bradley, R. H. (Eds.). (2002). Socioeconomic Status, Parenting, and Child Development (1st ed.). Routledge.

  • Bradley, R. H., & Corwyn, R. F. (2002). Socioeconomic status and child development. Annual Review of Psychology, 53(1), 371–399.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

  • Bronfenbrenner, U. (1986). Ecology of the family as a context for human development: Research perspectives. Developmental Psychology, 22(6), 723–742.

  • Buijs, T., Maes, L., Salonna, F., Van Damme, J., Hublet, A., Kebza, V., ..., & De Clercq, B. (2016). The role of community social capital in the relationship between socioeconomic status and adolescent life satisfaction: mediating or moderating? Evidence from Czech data. International Journal for Equity in Health, 15(1), 203-214.

  • Chen, W., Niu, G. F., Zhang, D. J., Fan, C. Y., Tian, Y., & Zhou, Z. K. (2016). Socioeconomic status and life satisfaction in Chinese adolescents: Analysis of self-esteem as a mediator and optimism as a moderator. Personality and Individual Differences, 95, 105–109.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cheung, F., & Lucas, R. E. (2014). Assessing the validity of single-item life satisfaction measures: Results from three large samples. Quality of Life Research, 23(10), 2809–2818.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Conger, R. D., Conger, K. J., Elder, G. H., Lorenz, F. O., Simons, R. L., & Whitbeck, L. B. (1992). A family process model of economic hardship and adjustment of early adolescent boys. Child Development, 63(3), 526–541.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Conger, R. D., Conger, K. J., & Martin, M. J. (2010). Socioeconomic status, family processes, and individual development. Journal of Marriage and Family, 72(3), 685–704.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Conger, R. D., & Donnellan, M. B. (2007). An interactionist perspective on the socioeconomic context of human development. Annual Review of Psychology, 58, 175–199.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar��

  • Conger, R. D., Wallace, L. E., Sun, Y., Simons, R. L., McLoyd, V. C., & Brody, G. (2002). Economic pressure in African American families: A replication and extension of the family stress model. Developmental Psychology, 38, 179–193.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Diener, E. (2009). Assessing well-being: The collected works of Ed Diener (vol. 331). Springer.

  • Diener, E., Wirtz, D., Biswas-Diener, R., Tov, W., Kim-Prieto, C., Choi, D. W., & Oishi, S. (2009). New measures of well-being. In Assessing well-being (pp. 247–266). Springer, Dordrecht.

  • Diener, E., & Chan, M. Y. (2011). Happy people live longer: Subjective well-being contributes to health and longevity. Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being, 3(1), 1–43.

    Google Scholar 

  • Easterlin, R. A., Morgan, R., Switek, M., & Wang, F. (2012). China’s life satisfaction, 1990–2010. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(25), 9775–9780.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fowler, S. A., Davis, L. L., Both, L. E., & Best, L. A. (2018). Personality and perfectionism as predictors of life satisfaction: The unique contribution of having high standards for others. Facets, 3(1), 227–241.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Furlong, M. J., Gilman, R., & Huebner, E. S. (Eds.). (2014). Handbook of positive psychology in schools (2nd ed.). Taylor & Francis.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gauvain, M., & Huard, R. D. (1999). Family interaction, parenting style, and the development of planning: A longitudinal analysis using archival data. Journal of Family Psychology, 13(1), 75–92.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ge, T. (2020). Effect of socioeconomic status on children’s psychological well-being in China: The mediating role of family social capital. Journal of Health Psychology, 25(8), 1118–1127.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hayes, A. F. (2013). Introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional process analysis: A regression-based approach. Guilford Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hayes, A. F., & Rockwood, N. J. (2017). Regression-based statistical mediation and moderation analysis in clinical research: Observations, recommendations, and implementation. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 98, 39–57.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hoff, E., & Laursen, B. (2019). Socioeconomic status and parenting. In M. H. Bornstein (Ed.), Handbook of parenting: Biology and ecology of parenting (pp. 421–447). Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Huebner, E. S. (1991). Initial development of the student’s life satisfaction scale. School Psychology International, 12(3), 231–240.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Huebner, E. S. (2004). Research on assessment of life satisfaction of children and adolescents. Social Indicators Research, 66(1–2), 3–33.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jiang, J., Lu, Z. R., Jiang, B. J., & Xu, Y. (2010). Revision of the short-form Egna Minnen av Barndoms Uppfostran for Chinese. Psychological Development and Education, 26(1), 94–99.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jiménez-Iglesias, A., García-Moya, I., & Moreno, C. (2017). Parent–child relationships and adolescents’ life satisfaction across the first decade of the New Millennium. Family Relations, 66(3), 512–526.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Khaleque, A. (2013). Perceived parental warmth, and children’s psychological adjustment, and personality dispositions: A meta-analysis. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 22(2), 297–306.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lu, X. Y. (2002). Analysis of the ten classes of contemporary Chinese society. Study and Practice, 3(55), 20.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nikolova, M., & Nikolaev, B. N. (2021). Family matters: The effects of parental unemployment in early childhood and adolescence on subjective well-being later in life. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 181, 312–331.

  • OECD, P. (2012). PISA 2009 Technical Report. OECD.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Pan, Y. G., Zhang, D. J., & Wu, L. L. (2017). Revision and verification of primary school students’ psychological suzhi questionnaire. Journal of Southwest University (social Sciences Edition), 43(2), 127–133.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pérez-Fuentes, M. D. C., Molero Jurado, M. D. M., Gázquez Linares, J. J., Oropesa Ruiz, N. F., Simón Márquez, M. D. M., & Saracostti, M. (2019). Parenting practices, life satisfaction, and the role of self-esteem in adolescents. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 16(20), 4045.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Preacher, K. J., & Hayes, A. F. (2008). Asymptotic and resampling strategies for assessing and comparing indirect effects in multiple mediator models. Behavior Research Methods, 40(3), 879–891.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Proctor, C. L., Linley, P. A., & Maltby, J. (2009). Youth life satisfaction: A review of the literature. Journal of Happiness Studies, 10(5), 583–630.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Quach, A. S., Epstein, N. B., Riley, P. J., Falconier, M. K., & Fang, X. (2015). Effects of parental warmth and academic pressure on anxiety and depression symptoms in Chinese adolescents. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 24(1), 106–116.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Reyes, M. F., Satorres, E., & Meléndez, J. C. (2020). Resilience and socioeconomic status as predictors of life satisfaction and psychological well-being in colombian older adults. Journal of Applied Gerontology, 39(3), 269–276.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Roubinov, D. S., & Boyce, W. T. (2017). Parenting and SES: Relative values or enduring principles? Current Opinion in Psychology, 15, 162–167.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Seo, Y. J., Cheah, C. S., Özdemir, S. B., Hart, C. H., Leung, C. Y., & Sun, S. (2018). The mediating role of Korean immigrant mothers’ psychological well-being in the associations between social support and authoritarian parenting style. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 27(3), 979–989.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shin, D. C., & Johnson, D. M. (1978). Avowed happiness as an overall assessment of the quality of life. Social Indicators Research, 5(1–4), 475–492.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shrout, P. E., & Bolger, N. (2002). Mediation in experimental and nonexperimental studies: New procedures and recommendations. Psychological Methods, 7(4), 422–445.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Spera, C. (2005). A review of the relationship among parenting practices, parenting styles, and adolescent school achievement. Educational Psychology Review, 17, 125–146.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Terry, T., & Huebner, E. S. (1995). The relationship between self-concept and life satisfaction in children. Social Indicators Research, 35(1), 39–52.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Urbanova, L. B., Holubcikova, J., Madarasova Geckova, A., Reijneveld, S. A., & van Dijk, J. P. (2019). Does life satisfaction mediate the association between socioeconomic status and excessive internet use? International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 16(20), 3914.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Wu, L., Zhang, D., Cheng, G., Hu, T., & Rost, D. H. (2015). Parental emotional warmth and psychological suzhi as mediators between socioeconomic status and problem behaviors in Chinese children. Children and Youth Services Review, 59, 132–138.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Xu, L., Liu, R. D., Ding, Y., Mou, X., Wang, J., & Liu, Y. (2017). The mediation effect of coping style on the relations between personality and life satisfaction in Chinese adolescents. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 1076.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • You, S., Lim, S. A., & Kim, E. K. (2018). Relationships between social support, internal assets, and life satisfaction in Korean adolescents. Journal of Happiness Studies, 19(3), 897–915.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zhou, C. Y., & Guo, Y. Y. (2013). Impact of family social status on mental health: Mediating role of belief in a just world. Chinese Journal of Clinical Psychology, 21(4), 636–640.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Funding

This study has been supported by the Scientific Research Foundation of Chongqing University of Technology(No. 010822085) and the project of Guizhou Province Educational Science Planning (No. 2021B182).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Management, Chongqing University of Technology, No.69, Hongguang Street, Banan District, Chongqing, 400054, China

    Guangzeng Liu

  2. School of Teachers, Guizhou University of Engineering Science, Bijie, 551700, China

    Zhanfeng Zhao

  3. Department of Psychology, Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai, 200234, China

    Bingbing Li

  4. Research Institute of Social Development, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, Chengdu, 610052, China

    Yangu Pan

  5. School of Psychology, Guizhou Normal University, Guiyang, 550001, China

    Gang Cheng

Authors
  1. Guangzeng Liu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Zhanfeng Zhao
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Bingbing Li
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Yangu Pan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Gang Cheng
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Guangzeng Liu.

Ethics declarations

Conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Additional information

Publisher's note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Liu, G., Zhao, Z., Li, B. et al. Parental psychological well-being and parental emotional warmth as mediators of the relationship between family socioeconomic status and children’s life satisfaction. Curr Psychol 42, 23958–23965 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-03568-z

Download citation

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-03568-z

Keywords

Search

Navigation