Abstract
The Quality of Family Life and Well-Being of Chinese Parents in Hong Kong
D.T.L. Shek
This paper examines the impact of marital quality (marital adjustment and marital satisfaction) and parent-child relationship (parent-child relational quality and parent-child relational demands) on the well-being (psychiatric morbidity, midlife crisis symptoms, positive mental health, and perceived health status) of 1,501 Chinese parents. The results showed that while measures of marital quality and parent-child relationship were significantly associated with different indicators of well-being, they were more predictive of the well-being of mothers than fathers. Relative to parent-child relational demands, marital quality and parent-child relational quality were found to exert stronger impact on parental well-being. The present findings suggest that the quality of family life is intimately related to the well-being of Chinese parents.