Depressive symptom trajectories and their gender differences in adolescents from multicultural families in South Korea: an ecological perspective

ABSTRACT

This study examines the depressive symptom trajectories in middle-school adolescents from multicultural families in South Korea and explores their predictors from the ecological systems perspective. Using the latent growth model, we analysed a sample from the Multicultural Adolescents Panel Survey (2014–2016). Our findings revealed that depressive symptoms increased persistently with age. Girls presented a systematically higher risk of depressive symptoms than boys. Family support, two-parent families, parental monitoring, learning, friendships, positive perceptions about the residential area, and good health reduced depressive symptoms. Parental neglect, bullying, parental involvement in children’s grade, and acculturative stress increased depressive symptoms.

KEYWORDS:

• Multicultural family
• adolescent
• depressive symptoms
• ecological system
• gender

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2019S1A5B5A01036687)

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the National Research Foundation of Korea [NRF-2019S1A5B5A01036687].

Notes on contributors

Chung Choe

Chung Choe is an Associate professor at the Department of Economics, Konkuk University. 

Seunghee Yu

Seunghee Yu is an Assistant professor at the Department of Social Welfare, Sungkyul University.