PDF(Pubmed)
Abstract：
After more than three decades of implementation, China\'s one-child policy has generated a large number of only children. Although extensive research has documented the developmental outcomes of being an only child, research on the parent-child relational quality of the only child is somewhat limited. Using China Education Panel Survey (2014), this study examined whether the only child status was associated with parent-child relationships among Chinese junior high school students. It further explored whether children\'s gender moderated the association between the only child status and parent-child relationships. Two-level ordered logit models suggested that only children were more likely to report a close relationship with their mothers and fathers compared to children from multiple-child families (including two-child families). Taking birth order into consideration, we found that, only children were more likely to have close parent-child relationships than firstborns, whereas no significant differences were found between only children and lastborns. Interaction analyses further suggested that the only child advantages were gender-specific: the positive effects of the only child status were stronger for daughters than for sons, that is, daughters benefited more from being only children. Our findings highlight the importance of considering children\'s gender and birth order in exploring the only child effects in the Chinese context. Additional analyses about sibling-gender composition indicated female children were more likely to be disadvantaged with the presence of younger brothers, whereas male children benefited more from having older sisters. This reveals that the son preference culture is still deep-rooted in the Chinese multiple-child families.
摘要：
经过三十多年的实施，中国的独生子女政策产生了大量的独生子女。尽管广泛的研究已经记录了独生子女的发展结果，关于独生子女亲子关系质量的研究有些有限。使用中国教育小组调查(2014)，这项研究调查了中国初中生独生子女身份是否与亲子关系相关。它进一步探讨了儿童的性别是否调节了独生子女身份与亲子关系之间的关联。两级有序logit模型表明，与多个孩子家庭（包括两个孩子的家庭）的孩子相比，独生子女更有可能报告与父母的亲密关系。考虑到出生顺序，我们发现,独生子女比长子更有可能拥有亲密的亲子关系，而在独生子女和成年子女之间没有发现显着差异。互动分析进一步表明，独生子女的优势是特定于性别的：独生子女身份对女儿的积极影响比对儿子的影响更大。也就是说,女儿从独生子女中受益更多。我们的发现强调了在探索中国背景下独生子女效应时考虑儿童性别和出生顺序的重要性。关于兄弟姐妹性别构成的其他分析表明，在有弟弟的情况下，女童更有可能处于不利地位。而男性儿童从拥有姐姐中受益更多。这表明，重男轻女文化在中国多胎家庭中仍然根深蒂固。
