Abstract
This study examines the association between early-life relationships with parents and depression in mid-late adulthood in China, using data from the 2014 and 2020 China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Survey (N = 12,604). Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression and Two-stage Least-squares (2SLS) Instrumental Variable (IV) methods were applied. Results suggest that poorer early-life relationships with both father (coefficient = 0.4044, p < 0.001) and mother (coefficient = 0.3763, p < 0.001) were significantly associated with higher mid-late CES-D scores. IV analysis suggests that OLS regression results may have underestimated the strength of this association. Furthermore, relative deprivation moderates the association between early-life relationship with father and mid-late CES-D scores (coefficient= 0.1969, p < 0.05), but not relationship with mother (coefficient = 0.0338, p > 0.05). These findings underscore the lasting effects of early relationships with parents on mid-late mental health, with relative deprivation moderating the association between early-life relationship with father and depression in mid-to-late life.
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Acknowledgements
This study is supported by Humanities and Social Science Youth Fund of Ministry of Education of China (23YJC630153), Opening Foundation of Key Laboratory (JSHD202427), and Jiangsu Province Capability Improvement Project through Science, Technology and Education (ZDXYS202210).
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This study is based on secondary analysis of de-identified, publicly available data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS). The CHARLS project received ethical approval from the Institutional Review Board of Peking University (IRB00001052-11015). The current analysis involves no direct contact with human participants and no identifiable personal information. All procedures were conducted in accordance with institutional and national ethical standards, and with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki.
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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the CHARLS.
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Sun, J., Lyu, X. Association between early-life relationships with parents and depression in mid-to-late life: the moderating role of relative deprivation. Humanit Soc Sci Commun (2026). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-026-07612-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-026-07612-2
