The Effect of Parental Educational Expectations on Adolescent Subjective Well-Being and the Moderating Role of Perceived Academic Pressure: Longitudinal Evidence for China

Abstract

Although the strong positive correlation between parental educational expectations (PEE) and child academic achievement is widely documented, little is known about PEE’s effects on child psychological outcomes and the mechanisms through which it may work. Hence, in this paper, using nationally representative data from the 2013–2014 and 2014–2015 waves of the China Education Panel Survey, we investigated PEE’s causal impact on adolescent subjective well-being (SWB) and the moderating role of the academic pressures that these adolescents perceive. While we provided robust evidence for a positive causal relation between PEE and adolescent SWB, we also found that this relationship is negatively moderated by adolescent-perceived academic pressure, indicating that academic pressure is likely to attenuate the beneficial impact of PEE on adolescent SWB. In addition, the facts that the benefits of PEE are greater for female adolescents and those from migrant, one-child, and non-poor families suggested that it may operate on adolescent SWB through increased family resources, improved family relationships, and higher adolescent aspirations linked to higher PEE.