Multigenerational care or parental care? Familial care types, social-emotional development and mediation of parent-child relationship of single-parent children in mainland China

作者：Wang, Miao; Fan, Yao; Zhang, Qingzhu; Sun, Qian; Wan, Guowei^*; Hong, Jun Sung

来源：Child and Family Social Work, 2023, 28(3): 833-845.

DOI：10.1111/cfs.13008

• multigenerational care
• parent-child relationship
• single-parent family
• social-emotional development

Children from single-parent families are at risk for problems related to social-emotional development (SED). This study investigated the associations between familial care types and single-parent children's SED, and the possible pathways through the mediation of parent-child relationship. This study analysed 431 single-parent children (50.0% girls) drawn from a local database with a total of 2507 children studying in Grades 4 to 8. We compared the SED of single-parent children in multigenerational care and those in parental care. We then tested the possible mediating effect of parent-child relationship between familial care types and children's SED. The study found that there were no deficits in the SED of single-parent children in multigenerational care compared with those in parental care. Multigenerational care had no direct relationship with the SED of single-parent children after the mediator of the parent-child relationship was entered. The parent-child relationship mediated the associations between familial care types and four dimensions of the single-parent children's SED. These findings provided support for multigenerational and parental care, and also directions for family care strategies and developing social service programmes to promote the SED of single-parent children in China.

• 单位
  南开大学