# The impacts of economic hardship and family long-term care needs on adolescent depression and aggressive behaviors through family relational mechanisms: from the perspective of family stress model

## TL;DR

This study explores how family stress from economic hardship and long-term care needs affects adolescent mental health and behavior in China, focusing on family relationships and gender differences.

## Contribution

The study empirically integrates family long-term care needs into the Family Stress Model in an Asian cultural context, highlighting gender differences.

## Key findings

- Economic hardship indirectly affects adolescent depression and aggression through parental conflict and parent-child relationships.
- Long-term care needs directly predict depression and indirectly predict aggression through parental conflict.
- Female adolescents show stronger sensitivity to family stressors and relational processes than males.

## Abstract

Even though the theoretical rationale for extending Family Stress Model (FSM) to include family long-term care needs is substantiated, it has seldom been empirically integrated within the FSM framework, especially in Asian cultural settings. The current study longitudinally investigated how family stressors (economic hardship and long-term care needs) affect adolescent depression and aggressive behaviors through family relational mechanisms (parental conflict and parent-child relationship) and how these relationships differ by gender in mainland China.

This study employed structural equation modeling to analyze two-wave longitudinal national data from the China Education Panel Survey. The sample consisted of 9,433 student-parent pairs across 112 schools in 28 county-level units throughout mainland China who participated in both waves.

The results of serial structural equation modeling indicated that family economic hardship in Wave 1 did not significantly predict adolescent depression and aggressive behaviors in Wave 2 directly. However, it showed significant indirect effects on depression and aggressive behaviors through parental conflict in Wave 1 and parent-child relationship in Wave 2. Family long-term care needs in Wave 1 directly predicted adolescent depression in Wave 2 and indirectly predicted both depression and aggressive behaviors in Wave 2 through parental conflict. The overall model explained 10.4% of variance in depression and 6.1% in aggressive behaviors. Multi-group analysis revealed that the theoretical model of this study was applied to both genders. However, female adolescents showed stronger sensitivity to family stressors and relational processes. The model accounts for 13.6% of variance in depression and 10.8% in aggressive behaviors for females, compared to 9.2% and 4.4% for males, respectively.

The findings suggest that economic hardship is a stronger family stressor than long-term care needs, and parental conflict serves as a more significant mediator than parent–child relationship quality in predicting adolescent depression and aggressive behaviors in Chinese contexts. These results highlight the importance of developing stressor-specific and culturally sensitive family interventions that interparental conflicts to effectively reduce the negative impacts of family stress on adolescent mental and behavioral health. Additionally, gender-sensitive interventions may be particularly beneficial due to stronger family stress effects on relational outcomes, depression, and aggressive behaviors among female adolescents.