ISSN 1662-4009 (online)

ESPE Yearbook of Paediatric Endocrinology (2020) 17 15.10 | DOI: 10.1530/ey.17.15.10

ESPEYB17 15. Editors’ choice (1) (18 abstracts)

15.10. Parents’ marital quality and children’s transition to adulthood

Brauner-Otto SR , Axinn WG & Ghimire DJ



To read the full abstract: Demography 2020;57:195–220.

These authors examined the long-term consequences for children of the emotional bond between parents. In a long-term Nepalese cohort, they find that children whose parents report strong marital affection and less spousal conflict attain higher levels of education and marry later than children whose parents behave differently.

The evolutionary theory of socialization stipulates that familial psychosocial stress (e.g., marital conflict, harsh parenting, and father absence), affect reproductive strategy. Early maturation is selected under conditions of emotional risk and security uncertainty, thereby setting the stage for earlier sexual debut, more promiscuous mating, and the bearing of more offspring, along with lesser parental investment.

Unique longitudinal measures from Nepal allowed this group to link both mothers’ and fathers’ reports of their marital relationships with a subsequent long-term record of their children’s behaviors. They focused on children’s educational attainment and marriage timing because these two dimensions of the transition to adulthood have wide-ranging, long-lasting consequences. They found that children whose parents report strong marital affection and less spousal conflicts attained higher levels of education and marry later than children whose parents reported weak marital affection. Furthermore, these findings are independent of each other and of multiple factors known to influence children’s educational attainment and marriage timing. These results support theories pointing toward the long-term intergenerational consequences of variations in multiple dimensions of parents’ marriages. It was previously shown that maximal effect is exerted at the transition from infancy to childhood around age one year and then again at the transition from childhood to juvenility around age 6.

The authors consider three mechanisms likely to be operating in the Nepal-specific context and culture: parental investments in childrearing, general social psychological links between parents and children, and children’s motivations to leave the parents’ home.

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