Debbie Hart Institute of Social and Economic Research University of Essex

1. Happy Families?The association between parental life satisfaction and older children’s self-esteem Debbie Hart Institute of Social and Economic Research University of Essex

2. Questions guiding research • What factors are associated with youth self –esteem? • Does the wellbeing of parents have an effect on youth self-esteem? • Do relationships differ according to mother/father, sons/daughters? • Does a relationship remain when a variety of other youth characteristics are taken into account?

3. Relevant literature • ‘Emotional contagion’ – transference of emotion between individuals • Evidence of emotional contagion between: - college roommates (Anderson,2003) • work colleagues (Totterdell et al, 1998) • married couples (Saxbe and Repetti, 2010) • Short time period • Small samples • Diary methods

4. Hannington et al (2010) found that parental depressive symptoms were associated with increased temperament problems in infants at follow up. • Maternal depression has also been associated with insecure attachment (Downey and Coyne 1990, Martins and Gaffman 2000) • Focus on more clinical problems • Focus predominantly on infants

5. Contagion hypothesis Low parental life satisfaction Observant learning Changes to parent-child relationship More family conflict Risks to self-esteem of child

6. Common stressor hypothesis Common family stressor Low parental satisfaction Low youth self esteem • Can control for some family stressors • Would still suggest child’s vulnerability to family stress • Parent’s coping mechanisms may still impact upon child

7. Reverse causation hypothesis Low youth self esteem Low parental life satisfaction • Can introduce a lagged version of parental life satisfaction • Control for lagged youth self esteem

8. Data and Measures • British Household Panel Survey, waves 4-17 • Youth questionnaire, 11-15 year olds • Youth’s data matched with their parent’s data on adult questionnaire • Parental life satisfaction measure: • “How dissatisfied or satisfied are you with your life overall?” • 1-7 scale, converted to dummy, low/high life satisfaction

9. Youth self-esteem measure: • “Please say whether you strongly agree, agree, disagree, or strongly disagree that the following statements apply to yourself. • I feel I have a number of good qualities •  I certainly feel useless at times • I am a likeable person • I am inclined to feel I am a failure • At times I feel I am no good at all • 1-16 scale

15. OLS Regression – basic model

16. OLS Regression – with parental controls

17. OLS Regression – full model

19. Summary of findings • Low maternal life satisfaction in the previous observation associated with declined youth self-esteem in current observation • Effect remains when a range of control variables are included in the model, although becomes smaller • Paternal life satisfaction not related once additional controls added to model • Association exists for both male and female youths • Effect may be direct or related to a common stressor • Effect not restricted to younger children

20. Conclusions and further directions • Within the family, frequent interactions take place and considerable time is often spent together, it may therefore be the case that family member’s own states of wellbeing may influence each other’s. • The importance of the family context for the child and their vulnerability to parental stress is suggested • Support to parents will also likely benefit their child’s self-esteem • Impact of different family types • Further work on causal relationships • Examine the role of specific family stressors • Alternative measures

21. Thank-you for listening Debbie Hart dhart@essex.ac.uk