The Influence of Mother's Depressive Symptom on South Korean Children's Success in School

Background and Purpose:

South Korean children have been well known for their outstanding performance in various international surveys of student achievement. This has been found that an extraordinary degree of Korean parents’ (especially mothers’) interest in children’s educational success and their actual involvement has been a major influential factor in Korea. However, despite the importance of parental involvement in Korea, little is known about the factors affecting it. Although previous research has demonstrated that parent’s socio-economic status can be an influential factor, less attention has been paid to the parent’s mental health, especially on the depressive symptom despite its prevalence among mothers. Therefore, this paper examines the impact of mother’s depressive symptom on parental involvement in their children’s school. In this study, we expected that mothers who have a depressive symptom are less likely to be involved in the school. As a result, less parental involvement would be related to lower academic achievement in children.

Methods:

We used a nationally representative sample of students in high schools from the 2012 Korea Welfare Panel Study(KWPS) conducted by the Korea Institute for Health and Social. This data included 322 high school students and their mothers. Academic achievement was self-rated with a five-item scale. The level of Maternal Depressive symptom was assessed with a CESD-11 scale. Parental Involvement was measured with a scale based on Epstein’s concept of Parental Involvement with a four-item scale. Here, children indicated whether, in the last year, their parents had been involved in their children’s school and had helped them with any school related activities. This study employed a multiple regression analysis and the Sobel Test was performed to prove the mediating effects.

Results: 

It has been revealed that maternal depressive symptom has a negative impact not only on parental involvement but also on a child’s academic achievement. Additionally, it was predicted that children whose parents were less involved had a lower score on their academic achievement. Also, parental involvement had a mediating effect between maternal depression and academic achievement.

Implications:

Maternal depressive symptom, which is a risk factor among Korean mothers, has a negative effect on child’s development. Therefore, more attention should be paid to the children of depressed mothers. Providing an adequate intervention to relieve depressive symptom to mothers is essential for the mothers’ well-being and for their children’s development as well. As mothers who have a depressive symptom are likely to be less involved with their children’s academics, schools should also encourage mothers to participate in school activities.