Parental depressiveness and children’s emotional problems

This study used panel data to examine the longitudinal effect of maternal and paternal depressiveness on children’s emotional difficulties in two-parent families in Germany. The main purpose was to examine whether the strength of this association differs depending on whether parents or children themselves assessed children’s emotional difficulties. Based on data from 1,586 children from the German Family Panel (pairfam), our findings show much stronger associations between parental depressiveness and children’s emotional difficulties when using parent-reported measures than when using child-reported measures, which indicates a negative mood bias in parent reports. The findings emphasise the importance of taking children’s self-reports into account when studying child wellbeing.