Related Research Of Relationship Between Types Of Adult Child-Parent Relationship And The Health Of Both Generations

Adult child-parent relationship refers to the relationship between adult children and their parents, namely the parent-child relationship in children's adulthood or the parent-child relationship in parents'later life. This study investigated the types and characteristics of intergenerational relations within Chinese families using the indicators of intergenerational solidarity-conflict, intergenerational ambivalence and intergenerational relationship quality, and also examined their impact of mental health (wellbeing and psychological distress) and physical health. In Research One we collected a sample of 1,283 Chinese adult children co-residing with parents (n= 366) or residing apart from parents (n= 917) was given a battery of self-report measures of intergenerational relations. In Research Two we collected a sample of 368 Chinese family in which adult children with their biological parents (n= 736) was given a battery of self-report measures of intergenerational relations and health. Through the research on the intergenerational relationship between adult child and their parents, we can draw conclusions as follows:(1) A latent class analysis identified five types of intergenerational relationships characteristic of Chinese families:intimate but distant (42.9%), tight-knit (21.7%), obligatory (15.8%), distant (14.4%) and detached (5.2%).(2) These types were differentiated on the basis of gender, marital status and education, family type of the adult children and gender and education of parents. There is no significant difference among the five types of intergenerational relationships in intergenerational ambivalence, but there are significant differences among the five types of intergenerational relationships in the quality of intergenerational relationship.(3) Adult children who is co-resident with parents reported higher than adult children who live apart from parents in the big family gathering, giving assistance and receiving assistance of the indicator of solidarity-conflict. And co-resident adult children feel more emotionally close to parents than non-co-resident adult children, however having fewer small family gathering. Furthermore, co-resident adult children reported marginally significant more ambivalence than non-co-resident adult children, but they have no difference on the intergenerational quality.(4) Ambivalence is not a peculiar type of relations, but a common characteristic of intergenerational relations with in Chinese families. Moreover, better relation types have better quality, and ambivalence have negative correlation with quality of intergenerational relationships.(5) Non-co-resident adult children have significant differences among the four parent-child relations (divided by sexual role) in affectual solidarity, functional solidarity and intergenerational quality, and have marginal significant differences in consensual solidarity. Co-resident adult children have significant differences among the four parent-child relations (divided by sexual role) in associational solidarity and affectual solidarity.(6) When adult children have a house they will report higher wellbeing, and so do parents. When adult children report higher intergenerational quality and solidarity, they will report higher wellbeing, and so do parents. Moreover, reporter's ambivalence, gender and education and partner's education predict his own wellbeing.(7) Reporter's assessment of intergenerational quality and partner's education negatively predict his own psychological distress.(8) Residential propinquity and whether own a house have negatively significant predictions of self-rated physical health. Furthermore, parents and adult children have significant differences in self-rated physical health. And partner's gender, ambivalence and assessment of solidarity predict actor's self-rated physical health.