The coparenting relationship in Chinese families: The role of parental neuroticism and depressive symptoms

Abstract

The current study aimed to examine whether parental neuroticism was related to the coparenting relationship directly and indirectly via parental depressive symptoms. Furthermore, this study aimed to explore the interdependency of the effects between parents in Chinese nuclear and extended families. Two waves of longitudinal data from a sample of 1,419 Chinese families were used (822 nuclear families and 597 extended families). Both fathers and mothers rated their levels of neuroticism, depressive symptoms at the first wave, and their perceived coparenting relationship 1 year later. Using the actor-partner interdependence model (APIM) in nuclear and extended families, both parental neuroticism and depressive symptoms predicted their coparenting relationship (i.e., actor effects). Maternal neuroticism and maternal depressive symptoms predicted paternal coparenting relationship in both nuclear and extended families. Partner effects of paternal neuroticism were significant only in extended families. Compared with fathers, the actor effects of depressive symptoms on the coparenting relationship were higher among mothers. Depressive symptoms played a partial mediating role between neuroticism and the coparenting relationship in dyadic ways. These findings improved our understanding of the underlying mechanisms involved in the coparenting relationship by showing the interrelation of personality and mental health factors. The specific implications of how therapists may intervene in parental mental health to promote the coparenting relationship were discussed.

Keywords

Actor-partner interdependence model Chinese parents coparenting relationship depressive symptoms neuroticism

Introduction

The coparenting relationship refers to aspects of the parents’ relationship that are tied to the raising of children (Feinberg, 2003; Margolin et al., 2001). With a good or positive coparenting relationship, parents cooperate and coordinate in childrearing and support each other in parenting. Previous studies have noted that a positive coparenting relationship can benefit both children and parents, such as less problematic behavior in children (Latham et al., 2018) and a more satisfying marital relationship (McHale, 1995). Modern society has been increasingly calling upon gender equality in parenting and other aspects of modern life. With increased paternal involvement in direct childrearing and caregiving activities (Jones & Mosher, 2013; Xu et al., 2018), fathers and mothers contribute to parenting as a team. Through these changes, obtaining a positive coparenting relationship has become increasingly important.

Concerns about the coparenting relationship have also increased in China and other Asian countries (McHale et al., 2014). First, there is a dramatic increase in women’s participation in the Chinese labor force, resulting in changes in the traditional division of childrearing issues (Liu & Cheung, 2015; Said, 1993). A high proportion of dual-earner parents have serious difficulties in combining their work and parenting obligations (Geurts & Demerouti, 2004), making it harder to deal with childrearing issues. Second, beliefs about gender equality and maintaining positive coparenting relationships are becoming accepted in China. According to a report released publicly in 2017 by the China National Children’s Center, more than half of the 30,250 couples reported that both fathers and mothers should share the responsibility of parenting, while only 20% reported that they were doing so in behavior, showing a sharp discrepancy (China National Children’s Center, 2017). Therefore, a deep exploration of the mechanisms of the coparenting relationship in a Chinese sample is of practical significance.

Maintaining a positive coparenting relationship has been the focus of academic and intervention research. As the ecological model of coparenting notes (Feinberg, 2003), there are three interdependent sources of influence on coparenting: individual (e.g., the characteristics of parents and children), family, and extra-familial factors. Over the past decades, numerous studies have focused on how family factors may influence the coparenting relationship (e.g., marital relationship, Liu & Wu, 2018; Margolin et al., 2001). Although parental individual characteristics have received relatively less attention, they are believed to account for intrafamilial relationship patterns (Talbot & McHale, 2004) and have the desired impact on coparenting, particularly in intervention studies (McHale et al., 2012). Some studies have shown that parental individual characteristics (e.g., personality and depression) may contribute to the coparenting relationship (Stright & Bales, 2003; Williams, 2018). However, the underlying mechanism between parental individual characteristics and the coparenting relationship remains to be explored. In this study, we explored the associations between parental individual characteristics and the coparenting relationship in a sample of Chinese parents.

Determinants of the coparenting relationship: Parental individual characteristics

The two essential parental individual characteristics that determine the coparenting relationship are personality characteristics and depressive symptoms (Feinberg, 2003). Personality reflects how parents feel, think, and act, which is a reliable and highly stable predictor of intimate relationships (Back et al., 2011). According to the temperamental view of personality (McCrae & Costa, 1991), personality traits are directly linked to interpersonal outcomes because they indicate individual differences in enduring affective dispositions (Ozer & Benet-Martinez, 2006). Among the personality dimensions, neuroticism is a general tendency to experience negative affect (Costa & McCrae, 1992) and shows stronger effects on intimate relationships than other personality dimensions (Buss, 1991; Karney & Bradbury, 1997). Those who score high in neuroticism tend to have irrational thoughts and cope poorly with stress, which poses a threat to relationship quality (Schaffhuser et al., 2014). Numerous studies indicate that one’s neuroticism may undermine the marital relationship (Fisher & McNulty, 2008), while to our knowledge, direct evidence of the relationship between neuroticism and the coparenting relationship is rare. For instance, Belsky and Hsieh (1998) and Stright and Bales (2003) found that neuroticism was negatively related to supportive and positively related to unsupportive coparenting. Nevertheless, these related studies identified correlational associations and were conducted in Western cultures. Whether similar associations could be found in Chinese culture still needs to be clarified. Owing to the relevant studies on neuroticism’s negative effect on Chinese couples’ marital relationship (Cao et al., 2019) and that both the marital relationship and the coparenting relationship are highly correlated indicators of the interpersonal relationship of parents (Liu & Wu, 2018), we hypothesized that neuroticism might also be negatively related to the coparenting relationship within Chinese parents.

Depressive symptoms can be seen as the presence of cognitive, affective, and physical symptoms (Beck & Bredemeier, 2016), suggesting both perceptual and behavioral defects (Hallion & Ruscio, 2011). According to Coyne’s (1976) model of depression, individuals who are depressed result in distressed interpersonal relationships by engaging in aversive interactions with significant others that often lead to loss of support or negative reactions from others. Although many studies point to the view that parental depressive symptoms may be related to hostile and negative parenting (Wilson & Durbin, 2010), its negative effect on coparenting dynamics has recently been the focus of studies. The ecological model of coparenting posits that parents who are profoundly depressed may withdraw from their partner, displaying complaints or other negative behaviors, which leads to difficulty in cooperating when rearing children (Feinberg, 2003). Empirical studies are consistent with this statement (Isacco et al., 2010; Williams, 2018), suggesting that parental depressive symptoms are negatively associated with the coparenting relationship.

Mediation by parental depressive symptoms

Neuroticism and depressive symptoms may affect the coparenting relationship, but their contributions may not be independent. As the cognitive-affective system theory of personality notes, as stable factors, one’s personality is not the only predictor of behavior, but many psychological features make a difference across situations (Mischel & Shoda, 1995). This theory suggests that neuroticism may affect the coparenting relationship through less stable factors such as affect, which can be seen as a type of cognitive-affective unit in the personality mediating system. Many studies have also suggested that neuroticism may affect intimate relationships through perceptual or behavioral processes (Caughlin et al., 2000; Fisher & McNulty, 2008; Karney & Bradbury, 1997). Therefore, depressive symptoms may act as the mediator between neuroticism and the coparenting relationship.

Regarding the associations between neuroticism and depressive symptoms, a high level of neuroticism predicts more symptoms of depression in both clinical and non-clinical samples (Hankin & Abela, 2005). Rearing a child can be exceptionally demanding and challenging, including conditions that are associated with parental stress and depression (Matthey et al., 2000). Those high in neuroticism may manifest depressive symptoms and show a tendency to cope poorly. Additionally, neuroticism is a stable feature of an individual (Ormel et al., 2012), while depressive symptoms may fluctuate in the short and long term. Thus, depressive symptoms may partly explain the effects of neuroticism on the coparenting relationship. Above all, we sought to examine the mediating role of depressive symptoms between neuroticism and the coparenting relationship.

Interdependency of mother-father dyads in Chinese nuclear and extended families

According to family system theory, individuals within the family system are interdependent (Cox & Paley, 2003). Perceptions and behaviors in couple situations are two-sided (McHale & Irace, 2011), and parents are not only actors who behave toward others but are also partners with whom others interact. In this sense, one’s perceived coparenting relationship may depend on their characteristics (actor effect) and their partner’s characteristics (partner effect). Indeed, numerous studies on coparenting relationships indicate interpersonal and intrapersonal mechanisms in Western and Chinese cultures (Le et al., 2016; Liu & Wu, 2018). Therefore, this study examines how the coparenting relationship is associated with one’s characteristics and partners’ characteristics and the mediation process through parental depressive symptoms (see the theoretical model in Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Simplified representation of conceptual Actor-Partner Interdependency Model. am = actor effect of mother; af = actor effect of father; pm = partner effect of mother; pf = partner effect of father. Control variables and residuals are not shown for clarity.

When considering the interdependency of mother-father dyads in the coparenting relationship, the gender difference is still a confusing issue. Tissot et al. (2017) found significant relationships between maternal depressive symptoms and coparenting behaviors, but weaker links existed in men. In a sample of Chinese couples, the gender difference was inconsistent between marital quality and coparenting when considering their effects on different indicators of children’s development (Yuan, 2016). In China’s context, fathers and mothers are expected to take on different parental roles and work together as a harmonious team (Li & Lamb, 2015). Although the process of Westernization and modernization results in changes in the traditional division of childrearing issues between parents (Said, 1993), Chinese mothers are still the primary caregiver and lack power in family decision-making (Shu et al., 2007). Therefore, gender inequality in Chinese family life may shape the dynamics of coparenting relationships, resulting in different patterns in the mechanisms. In the current study, we examined several patterns of interdependency to determine whether gender differences exist in the mechanisms.

As mentioned, fathers and mothers play different roles in the family, and the different functions of mothers and fathers are also based on factors such as residential living patterns and the roles of other family members (Kurrien & Vo, 2004). Extended families where grandparents live with children and parents are typical in China’s context (McHale et al., 2014), making family dynamics more complex. In nuclear families, mothers rely on fathers to share in caregiving tasks, whereas in extended families, mothers seek assistance from extended family members, and the mother’s role became less central (Rogoff et al., 1991). Grandparents contribute to the parenting of the child, which makes parents less distressed when facing parenting problems (Ma et al., 2011). On the other hand, when facing parenting conflicts or disagreements, whether one parent follows the grandparents’ view may damage the coparenting alliance (Liu & Wu, 2018). Patterns of interdependency between parents may also differ when considering grandparents who live together. Based on a sample of Chinese couples, Liu and Wu (2018) reported that there was no difference between nuclear and extended families in how marital relationships affect coparenting. Indeed, no direct empirical examination of the potential differences between the two family types when considering the parental individual characteristics and the coparenting relationship. The present study aimed to fill this gap by examining whether the interactive dynamics of the coparenting relationship differ between Chinese nuclear and extended families.

The present study

The overall aim of this study was to examine the extent to which parental neuroticism and depressive symptoms are related to the coparenting relationship perceived by Chinese parents. Furthermore, we tested the mediating role of depressive symptoms. By applying the dyadic approach, the patterns of interdependency between parents in this mediational process were examined. With these new insights, this study may provide clinical practice by helping interventions aimed at improving the coparenting relationship and parenting behaviors.

Based on the existing literature, we expected (1) actor and partner effects for the neuroticism and depressive symptoms on the coparenting relationship; (2) an indirect process in which depressive symptoms mediated the association between neuroticism and the coparenting relationship, interpersonally and intrapersonally; and (3) the overall model varied by family type (extended or nuclear families) and suggested gender differences. As a theoretical model of this study, see Figure 1.

Method

Participants

A total of 2,064 families participated at Time 1 (T1, 2018). Considering the purpose of the study, we applied selection criteria based on demographic characteristics to get the final sample: (a) parents were legally married and were biological parents of their children (23 families in which children did not live with their biological parents were excluded), (b) parents lived together with their children at the time of the study (325 families in which children lived with only their mother or father were excluded), and (c) data were available for both parents and both two measurement waves (110 families left our project at Time 2; 468 families had valid data only for one or both parents at one time point). The selecting procedure resulted in a final sample of 1,419 families (68.8% of the original full sample). Compared with families who did not meet the inclusion criteria, included families showed lower paternal neuroticism (t₁₇₇₀ = −3.18, p < .01, d = 0.15), fewer maternal and paternal depressive symptoms (t₁₈₇₈ = −3.38; t₁₇₇₀ = −3.43, ps < .01, ds = 0.16), and relatively higher socioeconomic status (t₁₈₆₇ = 1.97, p < .05, d = 0.09). No statistically significant differences were found in maternal neuroticism or maternal and paternal coparenting relationships. Although there were some differences between the selected and full samples, the effect sizes indicated by Cohen’s d were relatively small (Cohen, 1977).

The final sample included 822 nuclear and 597 extended families, consisting of parents of 712 (50.2%) boys and 707 (49.8%) girls. At T1, on average, children were 10.98 years old (SD = 2.41), mothers were 39.21 years old (SD = 5.53), and fathers were 41.90 years old (SD = 6.00). Most fathers (79.9%) and mothers (76.6%) had at least a high school education level. A total of 78.8% of mothers and 92.1% of fathers were employed. None of the participants reported severe physical or mental problems in their children. Table 1 displays detailed demographic information.

Table 1.

Participants’ demographic characteristics.

	Fathers		Mothers		Children
	n	%	n	%	n	%
Education level
Elementary school and below	60	4.2	57	4.0
Middle school	226	15.9	275	19.4
High school	502	35.4	511	36.0
Bachelor degree	434	30.6	451	31.8
Master degree and above	197	13.9	125	8.8
Employment status
In employment	1307	92.1	1118	78.8
Not in employment	112	7.9	301	21.2
Child’s gender
Male					712	50.2
female					707	49.8
Child’s birth order
Rank first (including only child)					1046	73.7
Rank second					295	20.8
Rank third or after					78	5.5
Only Child					839	59.1

Procedure

This study is part of a project titled “Longitudinal Research on Chinese Children’s Social Development.” In 2015, first-grade students from 13 elementary schools (6 urban schools and 7 rural schools) and their parents in China were selected using a cluster sampling approach. The project and procedure were approved by the institutional review board of the study’s home institution. Written consent forms were first provided to school administrators to obtain their consent for the study. We then described the general terms of the survey to the students’ parents and acquired their informed consent. Trained experimenters conducted annual school visits to collect data on students’ self-reported measures. For parents’ data, questionnaires designed separately for fathers and mothers were returned home by the children. Parents were instructed to complete the questionnaires without discussion. If parents had more than one child, only the issues toward the target child in our study were measured. After completion, the questionnaires were returned to school by the children with sealed envelopes. The data used in the present study were from the fourth (2018, T1) and fifth waves (2019, T2) of the project, as these two waves contained the measures of interest.

Measures

Neuroticism

The parents rated their neuroticism at T1. The Neuroticism (N) scale was selected from the revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ-R; Eysenck & Eysenck, 1991), which was translated and revised to create the Revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Short Scale for Chinese. This subscale consists of 12 items that require responses of “yes” or “no.” Example questions included, “Does your mood often go up and down?” We coded 1 for “yes” and 0 for “no.” The mean scores of the items were calculated, with higher scores indicating higher levels of neuroticism. (In this study, the Cronbach’s α were 0.85 and 0.86 for mothers and fathers, respectively.)

Depressive symptoms

Parents rated their depressive symptoms at T1 through four statements that were selected from the Symptom Checklist-90-Revised (Derogatis & Savitz, 1999). Example questions included, “During the past couple of months, how often have you felt hopeless?” Responses were given on a 5-point scale (1 = almost never, 5 = almost always). The average score of each item was calculated. (In this study, the Cronbach’s α were 0.88 and 0.90 for mothers and fathers, respectively.)

Coparenting relationship

The coparenting relationship was assessed using 35 items from the Coparenting Relationship Scale (Feinberg et al., 2012) at T2. This measure was originally developed in English. It was translated and back-translated by two teams of graduate students who were fluent in English and Chinese. Example questions included, “My partner asked my opinion on issues related to parenting.” Responses were given on a 7-point scale (0 = not true of us to 6 = very true of us). We reversed the scores of negative items and averaged all items to produce an overall coparenting relationship score for each parent. Thus, a higher score reflects a higher level of perceived coparenting relationship. (In this study, the Cronbach’s α were 0.91 and 0.89 for mothers and fathers, respectively.)

Covariates

Six covariates were included—the number of children in the family, child’s sex, child’s age, father’s and mother’s age, and family socioeconomic status (SES)—as previous findings have shown that they may affect the coparenting relationship (Lindsey et al., 2005; Margolin et al., 2001; McHale, 1995). At T1, children reported their age and sex, and parents reported their age. SES was measured using parental educational attainment, parental occupation, and home possession. For parental education and occupation, fathers and mothers reported their conditions at T1 (five responses for each: “elementary school and below” to “master’s degree and above”; “jobless” to “national governor”). Home possessions were reported by children at T1 through one multiple-choice item, “Please select the possessions in your household,” such as computers and automobiles. SES was computed using a methodology developed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD, 2012): SES = (β₁ × Z_education + β₂ × Z_occupation + β₃ × Z_possession)/∊f, in which Z_education, Z_occupation, and Z_possession are each variable standardized; β₁ to β₃ are factor loadings, and εf is the eigenvalue of the first principal component.

Strategy of analyses

We first used SPSS 22.0 to analyze general descriptive statistics and pairwise correlations (Pearson’s r) between the variables. Gender differences in the observed variables between the two types of families were also tested using a 2 (mother vs. father) × 2 (2 groups: extended vs. nuclear families) mixed-design analysis of variance (ANOVA). To test our hypotheses, we employed the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model (APIM, Cook & Synder, 2005; Ledermann et al., 2011) within the structural equation modeling in Mplus 7.4 (Muthén & Muthén, 2012). The missing data in the final sample were not completely random (Little’s Missing Completely at Random test: χ²[90] = 155.96, p < .001). Therefore, we used multiple imputation (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2007) based on the Markov Chain Monte Carlo method and created 10 datasets to maximize our sample. The imputed data were used in the following analysis.

As for the model building, we first performed the baseline model, which contained all possible actor and partner effects. Second, we examined the specific dyadic patterns of the APIM in nuclear and extended families: equal actor and partner effects (couple pattern); same size but different signs of actor and partner effects (contrast pattern); zero partner effects (actor-only pattern); and zero actor effects (partner-only pattern; Kenny & Ledermann, 2010). In particular, we determined the dyadic patterns by estimating the parameter k, which equals the partner effect divided by the actor effect. For example, to determine the dyadic patterns of how maternal coparenting relationship is influenced by neuroticism, we estimated $k_{1} = \frac{pf 2}{am 2}$ . We then computed the bootstrap 99% CI for k and test whether k is statistically different from 1, 0, or −1 (e.g., If 0.00 is in CI and 1.00 is not, the actor-only pattern is appropriate). After determining the specific dyadic patterns, we further tested the differences between nuclear and extended families and gender differences by conducting multiple group analysis. In the final models, we constrained similar pathways based on the model test results. Acceptable model fit was assumed if the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) was less than .05 and the comparative fit index (CFI) and Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI) were higher than .95 (Little, 2013). For the nested model comparison, we evaluated the chi-square and CFI differences (Byrne, 2013). Specifically, we assessed the significance of chi-square change and compared ΔCFI with the cutoff criteria (ΔCFI ≤ .01) suggested by Cheung and Rensvold (2002).

Results

Preliminary findings

The results of mixed design ANOVA showed that there were significant main effects for gender but not family type or interaction effects in the three variables. Mothers reported higher levels of neuroticism [F (1, 1,371) = 46.23, p < .001], higher depressive symptoms [F (1, 1,367) = 16.93, p < .001], and lower coparenting relationship than fathers [F (1, 1,263) = −27.96, p < .001]. The correlation results showed that neuroticism and depressive symptoms were negatively associated with the coparenting relationship (see Table 2). The same pattern of associations was found across informants and family types.

Table 2.

Correlations and descriptive statistics of the variables.

	1	2	3	4	5	6
1 T1 Neuroticism (FR)	1	.27***	.59***	.26***	−.30***	−.23***
2 T1 Neuroticism (MR)	.28***	1	.24***	.61***	−.28***	−.37***
3 T1 Depressive Symptoms (FR)	.56***	.22***	1	.33***	−.38***	−.23***
4 T1 Depressive Symptoms (MR)	.24***	.58***	.43***	1	−.32***	−.47***
5 T2 Coparenting Relationship (FR)	−.30***	−.22***	−.32***	−.28***	1	.53***
6 T2 Coparenting Relationship (MR)	−.21***	−.34***	−.28***	−.41***	.59***	1
M (SD) in nuclear families	0.19 (0.24)	0.25 (0.25)	1.67 (0.85)	1.77 (0.84)	4.48 (0.73)	4.35 (0.81)
M (SD) in extended families	0.19 (0.23)	0.24 (0.26)	1.60 (0.76)	1.71 (0.79)	4.53 (0.73)	4.43 (0.81)

Note. FR = father report; MR = mother report. Results of extended families are above the diagonal, results of nuclear families are below.

***p < .001.

Effects of neuroticism and depressive symptoms on the coparenting relationship

The baseline model was a saturated model with all possible actor and partner effects and covariates. All actor effects reached statistical significance, excluding partner-only patterns. We then followed the steps advised by Kenny and Ledermann (2010) to determine the patterns of interdependency by estimating the parameters of k. In total, 12 parameters of k were estimated [3 (from neuroticism to depressive symptoms, from neuroticism to coparenting relationship, and from depressive symptoms to coparenting relationship) × 2 (mothers and fathers) × 2 (nuclear and extended families)]. Results showed that in nuclear families, ks for all maternal factors, and k for neuroticism and depressive symptoms in fathers ranged from 0.12 to 0.40, in which CI includes 0 and excludes 1 or −1, suggesting actor-only patterns. In extended families, ks for depressive symptoms and the coparenting relationship in mothers, and neuroticism and depressive symptoms in fathers ranged from 0.06 to 0.13, in which CI includes 0 and excludes 1 or −1, suggesting actor-only patterns. All statistics are provided in the supplementary material. Therefore, we fixed the relevant partner effects to zero in nuclear and extended family models to obtain the parsimonious model (p_f1, p_f2, p_f3, and p_m1 in nuclear families and p_m1 and p_m3 in extended families).

We further examined the differences between nuclear and extended families through multiple group comparisons. By constraining each pathway through two types of families to be equal, results showed that the changes of the model fit did not reach significance (Δχ² ranged from 0.02 to 3.04, ΔCFIs < 0.01, ps > .05). The results suggested that although there were different patterns of interdependency between the two types of families, the existing associations were similar.

To assess potential parental gender differences in associations, maternal and paternal actor effects and the significant partner effects were constrained to be equal. By comparison, the results showed that the model fit of the constrained model was significantly worse by constraining the actor effects of depressive symptoms on the coparenting relationship (Δχ² = 21.44, ΔCFIs = 0.01, p < .001), in which actor effects of maternal depressive symptoms were significantly higher than that of paternal depressive symptoms. Other actor and partner effects were similar for mothers and fathers (Δχ² ranged from 0.28 to 1.62, ΔCFIs < 0.01, ps > .05).

The final model that constrained the similar pathways above showed good fit statistics: χ²[17] = 40.40, p = 0.01, CFI = 0.99, TLI = 0.98, RMSEA 90% CI = .044 [.027–.062], SRMR = .04. The final model is shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2.

Model results of the final Actor-Partner Interdependency Model in nuclear families (left) and extended families (right). Paths shown in the figure were standard estimated. Covariates were not shown for simplicity. M = Mother, F = Father. ***p < .001, **p < .01.

Mediating effect of depressive symptoms

The final model revealed a partial mediating role of depressive symptoms (Table 3). In nuclear families, maternal neuroticism was related to lower maternal and paternal coparenting relationships via more maternal depressive symptoms, while paternal neuroticism was related to lower paternal coparenting relationship via more paternal depressive symptoms only. In extended families, maternal neuroticism was related to lower maternal and paternal coparenting relationships via more maternal depressive symptoms, while paternal neuroticism was related to lower paternal coparenting relationship via more maternal and paternal depressive symptoms and was related to lower maternal coparenting relationship via more maternal depressive symptoms.

Table 3.

Results of the indirect effects in final model.

	Nuclear Family				Extended Family
	Mother		Father		Mother		Father
	B (SE)	β	B (SE)	β	B (SE)	β	B (SE)	β
Total indirect effects of parental neuroticism → own coparenting relationship (total indirect actor effect)	−.57*** (.05)	−.18	−.21*** (.04)	−.07	−.57*** (.05)	−.19	−.25*** (.05)	−.02
Through own depression symptoms (actor-actor mediation)	−.57*** (.05)	−.18	−.21*** (.04)	−.07	−.57*** (.05)	−.19	−.21*** (.04)	−.01
Through partner’s depression symptoms (partner-partner mediation)	—	—	—	—	—	—	−.04* (.02)	−.01
Total indirect effects of parental neuroticism → partner’s coparenting relationship (total indirect partner effect)	−.23*** (.05)	−.08	—	—	−.23*** (.05)	−.09	−.09* (.04)	−.01
Through own depression symptoms (actor-partner mediation)	−.23*** (.05)	−.08	—	—	−.23*** (.05)	−.09	—	—
Through partner’s depression symptoms (partner-actor mediation)	—	—	—	—	—	—	−.09* (.04)	−.01

B stands for unstandardized estimates, β stands for standardized estimates. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

Discussion

Grounded on Feinberg’s ecological model of coparenting (Feinberg, 2003) and family system theories (Cox & Paley, 2003), the current study aimed to enhance knowledge on predictors and mechanisms of the coparenting relationship in Chinese families. To our knowledge, this study is unique in that it examines how neuroticism and depressive symptoms are related to the coparenting relationship and investigates depressive symptoms as mediators. By adopting the dyadic approach, intrapersonal and interpersonal associations were examined simultaneously. Because of these innovations, this study adds knowledge on interventions for Chinese parents to maintain a satisfactory coparenting relationship.

Actor effects on the coparenting relationship

In accordance with the ecological model of coparenting (Feinberg, 2003), parental neuroticism and depressive symptoms are both vital individual-level influences of coparenting. The actor effects of Chinese parents’ neuroticism and depressive symptoms were also in line with the temperamental view of personality (McCrae & Costa, 1991) and Coyne’s (1976) model of depression. Moreover, the actor effects of depressive symptoms were significantly higher among mothers. The results extend the findings from other cultures (Belsky & Hsieh, 1998; Stright & Bales, 2003; Williams, 2018) and contribute to the existing studies showing that parental neuroticism and depressive symptoms are detrimental to the perceived intimate coparenting relationship in Chinese collectivistic cultures.

First, those who scored higher on neuroticism and depressive symptoms were less satisfied with their coparenting relationships because they tended to behave negatively when parenting with their partner. Neuroticism is related to worse emotional regulation (Caughlin et al., 2000) and low empathy (Neumann et al., 2016) in intimate relationships. When facing difficulties or tasks in parenting, a neurotic individual cannot fully understand his/her partner’s needs and emotions, focusing on his/her own concerns, resulting in a poor coparenting relationship. Depressive symptoms also lead to emotional unavailability and less cooperative behavior (Blumberg & Hokanson, 1983), which in turn hinders parents’ interactional capacities. Second, neurotic and depressive individuals are generally less satisfied with their lives and relationships because they perceive life events to be more negative (Janowsky, 2003; Pereira-Morales et al., 2019). When facing the same childcare problems, such as children bawling or parent-child conflicts, neurotic or depressed parents may feel more distressed and pessimistic about their relationship with their partner. Thus, neurotic and depressive individuals have cognitive biases that worsen their coparenting relationship.

There were weaker links between paternal depressive symptoms and paternal coparenting relationship, which is in line with some studies (Tissot et al., 2017). One possible explanation is that mothers tend to react more sensitively to the emotional indicators of coparenting relationship than fathers (Zemp et al., 2017); thus, paternal mild depressive symptoms are less closely related to the coparenting relationship. Moreover, men and women manifest mental health problems differently (in which women show internalizing disorders, while men display externalizing disorders; Rosenfield & Mouzon, 2013). Therefore, maternal depressive symptoms may be more self-directed and influence mothers’ perceived coparenting relationship. Thus, a stronger association exists in the actor effects of maternal depressive symptoms.

Partner effects on the coparenting relationship

Consistent with the family system theories that emphasize the interdependency between parents (Cox & Paley, 2003), this study revealed that several partner effects on the coparenting relationship exist across families. In nuclear and extended families, maternal characteristics affected the coparenting relationship perceived by fathers. Only paternal neuroticism had partner effects on maternal coparenting relationship in extended families. These results suggest mother-driven partner effects in nuclear families and different patterns of interdependency in terms of family types.

In nuclear families, mother-driven partner effects are new support for the fathering vulnerability hypothesis (Cummings & Watson O’Reilly, 1997), showing that paternal coparenting relationship was related to both individual and partner characteristics. As children grow older to school-age and that fathers tend to become more engaged with childrearing (Jones & Mosher, 2013), mothers are still the primary caregivers in Chinese nuclear families with school-aged children. During this period, when mothers manifest high levels of neuroticism and depressive symptoms, being unable to handle childrearing issues, fathers face more parenting difficulties, thus making paternal coparenting relationship more vulnerable. Moreover, mothers tend to have more gatekeeping behaviors (maternal gatekeeping; Allen & Hawkins, 1999). When fathers show negative characteristics, mothers engage in gatekeeping behaviors, which leads to less paternal involvement (Fagan & Barnett, 2003). In this situation, the occurrence of coparenting conflict may be less and results in less detrimental effects on maternal perception of the coparenting relationship.

In extended families, maternal coparenting relationship not only relies on individuals’ characteristics but also depends on paternal neuroticism. One way to explain these results is to consider family life in Chinese culture. Compared with nuclear families, grandparents also contribute to the parenting of the child and provide the necessary support to the parents (Liu & Wu, 2018), making the mother’s role of parenting less central. Fathers’ contribution to parenting may be less than that in nuclear families in which the mother can only expect help from the father. Additionally, extended families challenge the capacity of parents to deal with parenting conflicts with grandparents. Chinese culture emphasizes family order and social harmony (Yum, 1988). In such a situation, the father plays a critical role in coordination. A high level of neuroticism may result in the father’s inability to resolve conflicts between his wife and his parents, thus making the partner less satisfied with the coparenting relationship. Moreover, extended families are also families that place much emphasis on traditional values such as collectivism (Huang, 2006). In this sense, parents in extended families are more dependent on each other in terms of relationships.

The results of the partner effects in the current study may seem contrary to what has been found in a previous study (Williams, 2018), which showed that only paternal depression was associated with lower maternal coparenting perceptions. This inconsistency may be due to the sample characteristics. The present study mainly focused on Chinese families of school-aged children who may manifest different patterns compared with children in their early years in Western culture. An additional explanation may be the collectivist culture and parenting roles in China that have been discussed. Taken together, the results underscore the importance of a dyadic perspective in parents’ research.

Mediating role of depressive symptoms

Regarding the mediating role of depressive symptoms, the results showed that parental depressive symptoms mediated the associations between neuroticism and coparenting relationship in dyadic ways. Although this finding shows relatively small indirect partner effects, it does provide support for the mediation process and interdependency between family members proposed in family system theories. The mediation process further reveals the internal mechanisms of the influences of individual characteristics on coparenting in the ecological model of coparenting (Feinberg, 2003). This finding also provides evidence for the cognitive-affective system theory of personality (Mischel & Shoda, 1995) that depressive symptoms play a role in the personality mediating system.

In nuclear and extended families, parental neuroticism was related to one’s coparenting relationship through individual depressive symptoms, showing evidence of the intrapersonal mediation process. As previous studies have shown, neuroticism affects intimate relations through perceptual or behavioral processes (Fisher & McNulty, 2008), which might explain our results. The perceptual process includes evaluating negative relationships (Caughlin et al., 2000), while the behavioral process includes negative interactions. Depressive symptoms affect individuals in both perceptual and behavioral ways, including negative evaluating bias (Janowsky, 2003) and less cooperative behavior (Blumberg & Hokanson, 1983).

Additionally, maternal neuroticism was related to paternal coparenting relationship through maternal depressive symptoms, showing an interpersonal mediation process. Paternal neuroticism also affected maternal and paternal coparenting relationships via maternal depressive symptoms in extended families, indicating a difference in nuclear families. These results indicate the critical role of maternal depressive symptoms in improving overall coparenting relationship in Chinese families. Particularly in extended families, paternal neuroticism was related to maternal depressive symptoms, making maternal mental health more vulnerable. This may also indicate that in extended families, mothers and fathers are more dependent on each other. In nuclear families, the mother plays a primary role in coparenting dynamics.

Implications

These results have potential implications. First, interventions aimed at helping parents deal with daily stress and focusing on promoting the mental health of the individual may induce changes in the coparenting relationship. As a relatively stable trait, neuroticism may not change significantly during adulthood (Ormel et al., 2012). It is valuable to educate parents about their personality differences and the potentially detrimental effects of one or both partners’ neurotic personality. Providing parents with skills that promote their emotional strategies and stress coping skills may better prepare them to be cooperative and supportive partners in parenting issues. Second, different patterns of interdependency in nuclear and extended families suggest more attention to family dynamics in different families in China. In nuclear families, mother-driven patterns suggest that maternal characteristics should be the focus of related interventional studies. Public policy efforts may find it valuable to treat maternal mental health to help parents work together to care for their children. In extended families, parents are more dependent on each other. A positive coparenting relationship may benefit from parents’ competence in resolving childrearing conflicts with grandparents. Extended families do not mean the transfer of parenting responsibilities but call for parents to be more cooperative and support each other. Programs on parenting and family relationships may consider this unique family characteristic to provide extra support for parents in extended families.

Limitations and future directions

Despite the strengths of our study, there are still several limitations that should be considered in future research. First, this study adopted a two-point design. This design may hinder the inclusion of autoregressive pathways (Byrne, 2013). The characteristics of coparenting relationship may differ during different stages of parenting (Margolin et al., 2001). Moreover, since neuroticism and depressive symptoms were assessed at the same wave, this may reduce the credibility of the mediation process. Thus, to further confirm the findings, future studies could use a developmental design to capture the fluctuation of variables and test the long-term effects. Second, owing to our longitudinal design, the target children in our study were all fourth-grade at T1. Given that our study consisted of parents of early school-aged children, future studies may generalize the findings to broader samples. Third, compared with excluded families, included families showed lower paternal neuroticism, less parental depressive symptoms, and higher socioeconomic status. Although the effect sizes were small, they may also hinder the generalization of the findings. Finally, future studies are required to add interpretations to the current study in terms of the differences between nuclear and extended families. Although we consider some demographic characteristics to be covariates, they may also provide more insights to the mechanisms. For example, the increased number of children may bring more challenges to coparenting in nuclear families than extended families in which grandparents may provide support. In addition, the potential differences may also lie in the extent of the grandparenting involvement that our study failed to capture. By considering the abovementioned processes, we may obtain a more detailed picture of how the coparenting relationship is shaped in nuclear and extended families.

Supplemental material

Supplemental Material, sj-pdf-1-spr-10.1177_02654075211016549 - The coparenting relationship in Chinese families: The role of parental neuroticism and depressive symptoms

Supplemental Material, sj-pdf-1-spr-10.1177_02654075211016549 for The coparenting relationship in Chinese families: The role of parental neuroticism and depressive symptoms by Jiawen Ju, Lichan Liang and Yufang Bian in Journal of Social and Personal Relationships

Footnotes

Authors’ note

The datasets used or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Jiawen Ju

Open research statement

As part of IARR’s encouragement of open research practices, the authors have provided the following information: This research was not pre-registered. The data used in the research are available. The data can be obtained by emailing: jiawenju0713@163.com. The materials used in the research are available. The materials can be obtained by emailing: jiawenju0713@163.com.

Supplemental material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

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