Acculturation, Parent-Child Conflict, and Parental Stress in Asian American Families: A Path Analysis

Asian Americans are the second largest and the fastest growing immigrant population in the U.S. Hawaii presents a unique perspective for studying this population because of Hawaii’s diverse population with a large share of foreign born Asian Americans. Cultural adaptation may be viewed as multidimensional, including both enculturation (a process of maintenance of heritage cultures) and acculturation (a process of adaptation to the mainstream or host culture). While the relationship between acculturation and parent-child relationship has been studied in the literature, the impact of acculturation on parental stress has not been well investigated, particularly in relations to parent-child conflict. This study examined whether parents’ acculturation experiences were associated with parent-child conflict and parental stress.

This study used data from the Hawaii subsample of the Survey of Asian American Families (SAAF). SAAF is a large, multi-sited, ongoing data collection effort to gather detailed information regarding Asian American families. The data collection started in New York in 2011-2012 and expanded to New Jersey in 2013-2014. The Hawaii data collection was conducted from 2015 to 2017. SAAF used a purposive convenience sampling method and surveyed Asian parents who had at least one child under age 18 living in same household. The Hawaii sample consisted a total of 230 Asian parents, including 67 Chinese, 67 Japanese, 46 Korean, and 50 Filipino parents. Most (94.9%) of respondents were first-generation immigrants, and over two-thirds (68.3%) of the focal children were born in the U.S. The independent variable of parental acculturation was measured by both cultural values (i.e. Familism) and cultural practices (related to primary language speaking, language of TV programs as well as their close friends and food preferences). A path analysis was utilized to examine the effects of parental acculturation on parent-child conflict and parental stress as well as the indirect effects of parental acculturation on parental stress through parent-child conflict.

Bivariate correlation analyses showed that cultural values and cultural practices were not significantly associated with each other. Cultural values on Familism were significantly associated with parent-child conflict but not with parental stress. The higher Familism score, the more parent-child conflict. Cultural practices were not significantly associated with parent-child conflict, but were significantly associated with parental stress. Cultural practices more toward their own ethnic home cultures were associated with higher levels of parental stress. Furthermore, the results of path analysis revealed that cultural values on Familism were indirectly related to parental stress through parent-child conflict, while cultural practices were directly associated with parental stress.

Findings of this study suggest the importance of identifying different aspects of acculturation, which showed direct and indirect paths to parental stress. Traditional family-oriented values were found to be related to parent-child conflict, which in turn led to increased parental stress. Differing from the existing literature, cultural practices were not significantly associated with parent-child conflict, but were directly related to parental stress. The findings are helpful in the development of culturally competent social services and interventions targeting parent-child relationships and parents’ psychological well-being, tailoring toward parents’ cultural values and acculturation experiences.