Interrelations between the happiness and wellbeing of adolescents and their parents

Presenter: Elizabeth Webb, University College London

Author: Elizabeth Webb

Co-author(s): Yvonne Kelly, Anne McMunn and Amanda Sacker

Substantial evidence supports the hypothesis that maternal wellbeing impacts upon child wellbeing, and in earlier work we have established that this relationship is bidirectional. Here we explore how, in two parent families, both parents’ wellbeing relates over time to their adolescent child’s happiness.

Analyses were conducted using data from Waves one to four of Understanding Society, which collects data on adult’s wellbeing (General Health Questionnaire [GHQ]) and on youth’s (age 10-15) happiness with their school work, appearance, family, friends, school and life as a whole. We use structural equation models to investigate the reciprocal relationships between both parents’ wellbeing and their child’s happiness. The analytic sample is 4748 triads (adolescent child, mother, father).

Our results show that the wellbeing of each parent longitudinally predicts that of the other parent. Maternal but not paternal wellbeing longitudinally predicts adolescent happiness, but adolescent happiness does not have longitudinal effects on parental wellbeing. When analyses are stratified by sex of adolescents, we find that female adolescents experience longitudinal effects of their mother’s wellbeing whereas male adolescents do not. Stratification of adolescents into two age bands (10-12 and 13-15 years) suggests that paternal wellbeing has a longitudinal influence on the happiness of older adolescents.

Our findings indicate that there are meaningful longitudinal effects of parental wellbeing on the happiness of their adolescent children, and reciprocal effects of the wellbeing of parents. This supports the suggestion that the family should be considered as a dynamic system, for instance when planning clinical interventions.