The linked lives in Chinese families: The impact of adult offspring’s divorce on parents’ depressive symptoms

doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-3631660/v1

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The linked lives in Chinese families: The impact of adult offspring’s divorce on parents’ depressive symptoms

https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-3631660/v1

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Objectives: In context of prolonged life expectancies and rising divorce rates in China, this study explores how offspring’s divorce is associated with parents’ depressive symptoms.

Methods: Using data from the four waves of Chinese Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) conducted during 2011-2018, we apply a two-way fixed-effects model with 134,230 observations from 50,264 parent-child pairs to examine the association, perform stratified analyses to investigate the heterogeneity, and replace dependent variable with potential mediators to explore mechanisms.

Results: adult offspring’s divorce is associated with increased parent’s depressive symptoms. The association is more salient for sons’ divorces and more salient among fathers. It’s also more salient for healthier parents in rural areas. After divorce, adult children are more likely to live with parents and their parents make more financial transfers to children.

Discussion: In China, offspring’s divorce impairs their parents’ mental health by affecting intergenerational economic allocations and living arrangements.

offspring’s divorce

intergenerational support

mental health

It’s well known that parents’ divorce hurts young children’s well-being and development (Emery & Forehand, 1996; Potter, 2010). However, the impact of offspring’s divorce on parents’ well-being is understudied. Demographers, sociologists, and social gerontologists began to investigate the association between offspring’s divorce and parents’ health until recently, but the studies focused on families in developed countries and had different findings (Kalmijn & de Graaf, 2012; Fingerman et al., 2012; Milkie et al., 2008; Ko and Sung, 2022). More specifically, the impact of children’s union dissolution varies across countries and depends on how family members are economically and socially in a specific cultural context (Greenfield & Marks, 2006; Tosi & Albertini, 2019). So far, little is known about the association between offspring’s divorce and parents’ well-being in China, a Confucian society with the largest population of older adults.

Traditional Chinese parents attach great importance to children’s marital status (Chen & Tong, 2010; Raymo et al., 2015). On one side, they consider son’s marriage as the pathway to continuing family lineage. On the other, they take daughter’s divorce as a shame, which denotes that they have failed in cultivating a qualified wife. Marriage is the best place for childrearing and the potential adverse effects of divorce on children is a standard fret. Moreover, in Chinese society, the lives within a family are economically linked. For example, when divorced children face difficulties, they often turn to their parents for support, such as transfers, accommodation, and caring for kids. Therefore, the end of a child’s marriage could significantly affect parent’s subjective well-being.

In the past decades, China has experienced increases in life expectancies and divorce rates (Wang & Zhou, 2010; Tosi & Albertini, 2019; Chen et al., 2021). Life expectancy surges from 73 years in 2005 to 77.93 years in 2020 (Cai et al., 2022) and the number of divorce cases increased from 299,932 in 1979 to 3,636,754 in 2015 (Chen et al., 2021). Therefore, elderly Chinese are more likely to experience offspring’s divorce than ever before. From the linked lives perspective (Greenfield & Marks, 2006; Pillemer et al., 2017; Zhao et al., 2018; Tosi & Albertini, 2019; Chen et al., 2021), offspring’s divorce could burden older adults with shame, worry, and depression (Kalmijn & de Graaf, 2012), especially in countries with strong family values like China.

How does offspring’s divorce affect parents’ daily lives? After divorce, adult children might lose the gains from marriage, such as the economy of scale and the benefits of labor division (Becker et al., 1997). For example, divorce could be harrowing for stay-at-home wives, who were specialized in housework and used to financially rely on their husbands. Therefore, adult children who experience economic difficulties after divorce might reduce their monetary transfers to parents or even need support (Fingerman et al., 2009; Cong et al., 2023; Ko and Sung, 2022). Moreover, some children move back to their parents’ houses after divorce, and some others ask their parents to move and care for grandchildren (Kalmijn, 2016). A recent study shows that most elderly Chinese prefer independent living if they are of higher socio-economic status and have better health (Cheng et al., 2018). The change in living arrangements and the obligations of caring for grandchildren could have mixed effects on older adults’ well-being (Jennings et al., 2021; Silverstein et al., 1996).

The consequences of offspring’s divorce are also heterogeneous across groups. In communities with strong patrilineal traditions, continuing family heredity is essential for men. A son’s divorce disrupts or delays the completion of this objective. Therefore, the effects of a son’s divorce should be more salient. Likewise, the results should be salient among fathers or older adults who value patrilineal norms more. Whether the impact is more prominent among disabled parents is uncertain. On one side, divorced offspring might have fewer economic resources to support their parents. On the other, disabled parents don’t have to care for their grandparents. In contrast, they might be better cared for by divorced descendants who switch to live with them.

The Chinese Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) questionnaire includes the 10-item form of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Scale (CES-D 10) to test respondent’s depressive symptoms (Kohout et al., 1993). As shown in Fig. 1, parents with divorced offspring score higher in the depression test. With the data from the four waves of CHARLS 2011–2018, the study uses two-way fixed-effects regressions to investigate (1) the effects of offspring’s divorce on older parents’ depressive symptoms, (2) whether the effects differ by child’s gender, parent’s gender, parent’s residency, and parent’s health, and (3) the roles of intergenerational monetary transfer and living arrangement as potential explanations.

Data

This study uses the longitudinal dataset from the CHARLS project, a nationally representative survey for Chinese aged 45 years old and above. As a sister survey of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) in the United States, CHARLS collects information on socio-demographic characteristics and health conditions. The national baseline survey began in 2011, and the following ones were conducted in 2013, 2015, and 2018. We restrict the sample to those with at least one living child and exclude parent-child pairs with unmarried or widowed offspring. We finally have a sample of 50,264 pairs and 134,230 observations.

Parent’s depressive symptoms

The CHARLS project uses the CES-D 10 form for depression test. It asks respondents whether they experienced the following in the past week: (1) I was bothered by things that usually do not bother me; (2) I had trouble keeping my mind on what I was doing; (3) I felt depressed; (4) I felt that everything that I did was an effort; (5) I felt hopeful about the future; (6) I felt fearful; (7) My sleep was restless; (8) I was happy; (9) I felt lonely; and (10) I could not get “going.” The frequency was coded as follow: 0, rarely or none of the time (less than one day); 1, some or a little of the time (1–2 days); 2, occasionally or a moderate amount of time (3–4 days); 3, most of the time (5–7 days). We reverse-coded items (5) and (8) and then constructed a summated scale ranging from 0 to 30. To avoid the excessive influences of outliers on estimation, we use the natural logarithm value of the summated score as the dependent variable.

Child’s divorce

The CHARLS questionnaire asks about the marital status of respondent’s children. The answer is coded into five response categories: married or living with a partner, separated, divorced, widowed, and never married. We exclude never-married or widowed offspring because this study focuses on the status-switching from “married” to “divorced.” The key independent variable is offspring’s divorce. This dummy variable equals 1, if the offspring in the pair used to be married or living with a partner in previous waves but is separated or divorced in the current wave. Otherwise, it equals 0.

Intergenerational relations: financial support and living arrangements

The changes in intergenerational relations contribute to the deterioration of parents’ mental health. This study considers two dimensions: the monetary transfers between parents and offspring, and living arrangements. The former is measured with the natural logarithm of the total financial transfers to or from non-coresident descendants during the past year. The latter is a dummy variable indicating whether the parent and descendant co-reside.

Other covariates

We control a set of parent’s and offspring’s characteristics in regressions. The control variables of parents include age, gender (male, = 1; female, = 0), educational attainment, marital status (divorced, = 1; divorced, = 0), labor force participation (working, = 1; not working, = 0), whether having pensions (receiving or participating, = 1; not receiving nor participating, = 0), the number of living children, a dummy indicating the presence of grandchildren (yes, = 1; no, = 0), and the natural logarithm of total household incomes. We also include the number of ADL difficulties (ranging from 0 to 10) and self-reported health to control for parents’ physical and functional health conditions. The variables of the descendant’s characteristics include age, gender, working status, educational attainment, and residency (urban, = 1; rural, = 0).

Model specification

The main regression model of this study is the two-way fixed-effects model. With the four-wave longitudinal data from the CHARLS, we control for year and individual-level fixed effects to exclude biases induced by unobservable macro- conditions or time-invariant confounders. The regression model for empirical analyses is specified as follows:

$$\text{ln}{Depression}_{it}^{p}={\beta }_{0}+{\beta }_{1}{Divorce}_{it}^{c}+\gamma {X}_{it}+{\mu }_{i}+{\lambda }_{t}+{\epsilon }_{it}$$

The dependent variable is $\text{ln}{Depression}_{it}^{p}$, the logarithm of the score of parent’s depressive symptoms. The independent variable of our interest is ${Divorce}_{it}^{c}$, which is a dummy indicating whether the descendant in the pair is divorced (yes, = 1; no, = 0). ${X}_{it}$ are control variables, such as parent’s and offspring’s socio-demographic characteristics. ${u_i}$are dummies for individual-level fixed effects and ${\lambda _t}$ are dummies for the wave fixed effects. The standard errors were clustered at the household level. We also estimate this model with different subsamples to investigate the heterogeneity of the impact.

Baseline results

Table 1 presents the statistical description of our sample. On average, parents are 64 years old and have more than three descendants. 40% of them report “poor” or “fair” health, and 39% have at least one ADL difficulty. The primary outcome variable is parent’s score on the CES-D 10 scale, whose average is 9.17. 39% of older parents get a score higher than 10 points (or “being severely depressed”).

Table 1

Social and Health Characteristics of Parents and Offspring (Chinese Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, China. 2011, 2013, 2015 and 2018)
Variables	Mean	SD	N
Outcome
Parents’ depression score of CES-D	9.17	6.12	134,230
Indicator of being more depressed (CES-D ≧ 10)	0.39	0.49	134,230
Financial Support from children (Yuan)	5,846.31	12,279.24	98,047
Financial Support to children (Yuan)	8,225.06	41,729.81	32,342
Living together with children	0.20	0.40	123,356
Parents’ characteristics
Age	64.01	9.65	131,157
Male	0.45	0.50	134,208
Urban	0.16	0.36	126,171
Working	0.61	0.49	134,052
ADL difficulties	0.39	0.49	134,230
Having pensions	0.28	0.45	133,888
Number of children	3.59	1.67	133,448
Number of grandchildren	0.92	0.27	134,230
Income of household per year (Yuan)	28,109.16	76,711.39	129,851
Education
Primary school unfinished	0.53	0.50	131,305
Primary school	0.22	0.42	131,305
Junior school	0.17	0.37	131,305
Senior school	0.07	0.26	131,305
College and higher	0.01	0.11	131,305
Self-reported health
Poor	0.16	0.36	134,132
Fair	0.34	0.47	134,132
Good	0.35	0.48	134,132
Very good	0.10	0.30	134,132
Excellent	0.05	0.22	134,132
Offspring’s characteristics
Age	36.92	9.43	133,423
Male	0.51	0.50	132,703
Divorced	0.02	0.15	120,815
Working	0.88	0.33	125,669
Education
Primary school unfinished	0.15	0.35	129,532
Primary school	0.23	0.42	129,532
Junior school	0.35	0.48	129,532
Senior school	0.15	0.35	129,532
College and higher	0.12	0.33	129,532
Note: SD = Standard Deviation. ADL = activities of daily living. Data are from the 2011,2013,2015 and 2018 China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Survey. The sample is restricted to adult parents who have alive adult children. Unmarried or widowed children in all four waves were excluded.

Our key independent variable is whether the descendent in the pair is divorced. Even though the divorce rate in China is increasing, it’s still at a low level. Only 2.2% of ever-married offspring are in “divorced” status. For 98,047 observations, parents receive financial help and the average amount of monetary transfer is 5,846 yuan. For 32,342 observations, parents make monetary transfers to offspring and the average is 8,225 yuan, which reflects the emerging phenomenon of “Kenlao” (“live off parents”) in China (Liu, 2017). For about 20%, the pair of parent and offspring live together.

Table 2

The estimates two-way fixed model (Chinese Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, China. 2011, 2013, 2015 and 2018)
	(1)	(2)
	Fixed-effects Model	Fixed-effects Model
	Log (Score of CES-D)	Indicator of being more depressed (CES-D ≥ 10)
Parents’ characteristics
Having divorced offspring	0.030** (0.006 to 0.054)	0.021** (0.004 to 0.037)
Age	-0.001 (-0.010 to 0.007)	0.001 (-0.005 to 0.007)
Working (yes = 1)	-0.020 (-0.047 to 0.007)	-0.014 (-0.033 to 0.004)
ADL (yes = 1)	0.148*** (0.118 to 0.177)	0.089*** (0.066 to 0.111)
Having pensions (yes = 1)	-0.005 (-0.034 to 0.023)	0.001 (-0.018 to 0.020)
Number of children	-0.002 (-0.019 to 0.014)	-0.003 (-0.014 to 0.009)
Having grandchildren	0.012 (-0.007 to 0.031)	0.013** (0.001 to 0.026)
Self-reported health (ref., Poor)
Fair	-0.102*** (-0.129 to -0.075)	-0.062*** (-0.083 to -0.042)
Good	-0.193*** (-0.224 to -0.162)	-0.114*** (-0.137 to -0.092)
Very good	-0.289*** (-0.331 to -0.247)	-0.150*** (-0.178 to -0.122)
Excellent	-0.306*** (-0.359 to -0.253)	-0.138*** (-0.173 to -0.104)
Log (income of household)	-0.013*** (-0.019 to -0.006)	-0.005** (-0.010 to -0.001)
Offspring’s characteristics
Age	0.000 (-0.001 to 0.001)	-0.000 (-0.001 to 0.000)
Male (yes = 1)	-0.000 (-0.004 to 0.004)	-0.001 (-0.004 to 0.002)
Working (yes = 1)	-0.005 (-0.019 to 0.008)	-0.001 (-0.010 to 0.009)
Education (ref., Primary unfinished)
Primary	0.002 (-0.011 to 0.016)	-0.004 (-0.013 to 0.005)
Junior high	-0.007 (-0.020 to 0.007)	-0.009* (-0.018 to 0.001)
Senior high	-0.004 (-0.019 to 0.011)	-0.004 (-0.014 to 0.006)
College and higher	-0.004 (-0.021 to 0.013)	-0.010* (-0.020 to 0.001)
Individual FE	Yes	Yes
Year FE	Yes	Yes
Observations	93,295	93,295
R-squared	0.673	0.620
Note: 95% CI = 95% Confidence Interval. 95% CI are reported in parentheses. *p < 0.01, p < 0.05, *p < 0.1. Standard errors are clustered at the household level. All models control for individual fixed effects and year fixed effects.

We report the regression results of two-way fixed-effects models with the full sample in Table 2. As shown in Column (1), the coefficient of the dummy indicating “child is divorced” is 0.030 (95%: 0.006 to 0.054) after controlling individual-level and year-level fixed effects. In other words, on average, parents with divorced offspring have a score of 3% higher on the CES-D 10 scale. The other measure of depression, which has a more substantial clinical implication, is a dummy variable indicating whether the parent’s CES-D score was 10 or above. We repeat our analyses with this measure and obtain consistent findings. Offspring’s divorce would increase the likelihood of “being severely depressed” by 2 percent (5.4% of the sample mean). We also conduct OLS (Ordinary Least Squares) regressions with these two measures as a robustness check and find consistent results (see Table A1 in the appendix).

The heterogeneity of the effects

The effects of children’s divorce can vary across parents for a couple of reasons. In Chinese culture, maintaining family lineage is men’s fundamental obligation to their ancestors. The filial piety also expects sons to support elder parents. Therefore, a son’s divorce should be more disheartening, and descendant’s divorce should be more depressing for fathers. Similarly, we expect the effects of offspring’s divorce to be more salient among elder parents living in rural areas, who have stronger patrilineal beliefs and rely more on descendant’s support. Last, as discussed before, healthier parents have more capabilities to share the losses associated with offspring’s divorce and take responsibilities of caring for grandchildren. They should be more affected by offspring’s divorce.

Table 3

The results by subgroup (Chinese Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, China. 2011, 2013, 2015 and 2018)
Panel A: By offspring’s gender
Log (Score of CES-D)	Male		Female
Having divorced offspring	0.066*** (0.029 to 0.104)		-0.003 (-0.046 to 0.040)
Individual FE	Yes		Yes
Year FE	Yes		Yes
Observations	44,969		44,640
R-squared	0.655		0.675
Panel B: By parents’ gender
Log (Score of CES-D)		Male	Female
Having divorced offspring		0.048*** (0.015 to 0.082)	0.015 (-0.016 to 0.047)
Individual FE		Yes	Yes
Year FE		Yes	Yes
Observations		42,344	50,895
R-squared		0.664	0.670
Panel C: By parents’ residence
Log (Score of CES-D)		Rural	Urban
Having divorced offspring		0.044*** (0.018 to 0.071)	-0.002 (-0.061 to 0.056)
Individual FE		Yes	Yes
Year FE		Yes	Yes
Observations		75,872	13,363
R-squared		0.674	0.714
Panel D: By ADL (activities of daily living) difficulties
Log (Score of CES-D)		Able	Disable
Having divorced children		0.046*** (0.016 to 0.077)	0.010 (-0.010 to 0.030)
Individual FE		Yes	Yes
Year FE		Yes	Yes
Observations		51,643	37,905
R-squared		0.748	0.897
Note: 95% CI = 95% Confidence Interval. 95% CI are reported in parentheses. *p < 0.01, p < 0.05, *p < 0.1. Standard errors are clustered at the household level. All models control for the same covariates as baseline regression in Table 2. All models control for individual fixed effects and year fixed effects.

To investigate the heterogeneity of the effects, we divide the sample into pairs of subsamples by parent’s gender, child’s gender, parent’s residence, and ADL ability. Then, we conduct regression analyses and report the results in Table 3. Consistent with our hypotheses, the impact of son’s divorce (coefficient = 0.066; 95% CI: 0.029 to 0.104) is more substantial than that of daughters (coefficient = -0.003; 95% CI: -0.046), and the impact is more vital for fathers (coefficient = 0.048; 95% CI: 0.015 to 0.082) than mothers (coefficient = 0.015; 95% CI: -0.016 to 0.047). The impact is significant among rural residents (coefficient = 0.044; 95% CI) than urban residents (coefficient = -0.002; 95% CI: -0.061 to 0.056). Moreover, it is imperative for residents with no ADL difficulties (coefficient = 0.046; 95% CI: 0.016 to 0.077) than for those with (coefficient = 0.010; 95% CI: -0.010 to 0.030).

The impact on intergenerational transfer and living arrangement

To better understand potential mechanisms behind the impact, we further examine how children’s divorce changed parents’ daily lives. We focus on intergenerational financial transfers and living arrangements. According to Table 4, after children’s divorce, the amount of financial support from parents to children increases by about 9.1% (95% CI: -0.006 to 0.188). The impact on the financial support from children to parents is statistically insignificant (coefficient = -0.033; 95% CI: − .0090 to 0.023). Moreover, divorced descendants are 3.4% more likely to live with their parents (95% CI: -0.006 to 0.073). These results suggest that Chinese parents make monetary transfers and change their living arrangements to support their divorced offspring. Such changes could be among the sources of their depression.

Table 4

The effects of offspring’s divorce on intergenerational interactions (Chinese Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, China. 2011, 2013, 2015 and 2018)
	(1)	(2)	(3)
	Log (Total financial support to parents)	Log (Total financial support to children)	Living together with children (yes = 1)
Having divorced children	-0.033 (-0.090 to 0.023)	0.091* (-0.006 to 0.188)
Lag (offspring’s divorce)			0.034* (-0.006 to 0.073)
Individual FE	Yes	Yes	Yes
Wave FE	Yes	Yes	Yes
Observations	83,061	24,878	39,729
R-squared	0.697	0.821	0.376
Note: 95% CI = 95% Confidence Interval. 95% CI are reported in parentheses. *p < 0.01, p < 0.05, *p < 0.1. Standard errors are clustered at the household level. All models control for the same covariates as baseline regression in Table 2. All models control for individual fixed effects and year fixed effects. The children’s divorce was lagged by one wave and used as the independent variable in column 3.

This study contributes to the growing literature on how children’s life-cycle events affect parents’ mental health in Chinese society. Most previous studies on intergenerational transmission of health focus on the downward pathway from parents to children. For example, many analyses have examined parental divorce’s impact on the well-being of children (Amato & Keith, 1991). In contrast, the upward pathway, from children to parents, has only received attention until recent years (Hu &Bobak, 2018). Several studies have confirmed the positive externality of children’s education, political status, or SES achievements on Chinese parents’ health (Zhao et al., 2018; Xie et al., 2021; Wang et al., 2022). Our study extends this branch of literature by considering the role of descendant’s marital status. Moreover, as divorce rates rise and life expectancies grow, elderly Chinese become more likely to experience their offspring’s divorce. Understanding its health consequences also has practical implications.

The impact is heterogeneous because it depends on the social construction of family ties. For example, in patrilineal societies where passing one’s surname is essential, son’s divorce is dispiriting for fathers. Moreover, the lives of family members in China are often linked. Older Chinese parents are expected to provide monetary transfers and grandchildren caregiving if their children need (Lin & Mao, 2022). In economic terms, there is an implicit contract of risk sharing in Chinese families, enforced by the norms of Confucian family ethics. We also further explore how offspring’s divorce alter intergenerational transfers and living arrangements. The results support our argument that parents must bear a part of the losses associated with offspring’ divorce, reducing their subjective well-being.

Indeed, our research design can’t exclude the possibility of endogenous bias. The correlation could be explained with reverse causality or an unobservable shock to the family (e.g., economic hardship). For instance, having a depressed parent might increase the likelihood of offspring’s divorce. To exclude this alternative explanation, we regress on one-wave lagged parent’s depression. The coefficient is insignificant, which suggests that the parent’s depression will not affect the likelihood of offspring’s divorce (see Table A2). Second, parents with multiple children are repeatedly counted in the sample of parent-child pairs. These parents could different from one-child pairs in unobservable characteristics. Moreover, parents with multiple children could have experienced two or more divorces, and experiencing offspring’s divorce again might differ from the first time. To check the robustness of our estimates, we reconduct regression analyses with the subsample of parent-oldest child pairs and obtain consistent results (see Table A3).

Author Contribution

Y.Zhou supervised the research. Y.Zhou and Y.Zhang conceptualized and designed the research. T.G. collected data and conducted analyses. All authors wrote and reviewed the manuscript.

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Appendix Tables A1 to A3 are not available with this version.

No competing interests reported.

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The linked lives in Chinese families: The impact of adult offspring’s divorce on parents’ depressive symptoms

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Version 1

Abstract

Figures

INTRODUCTION

METHODS

Data

Parent’s depressive symptoms

Child’s divorce

Intergenerational relations: financial support and living arrangements

Other covariates

Model specification

RESULTS

Baseline results

The heterogeneity of the effects

The impact on intergenerational transfer and living arrangement

DISCUSSION

Declarations

Author Contribution

References

Appendix Table

Additional Declarations

Status:

Version 1