Optimizing the Person-Environment Fit in community childcare and parenting support systems: a pathway to improved wellbeing for children and parents

With societal advancement, the increasing burden of childcare and parenting has significantly impacted the quality of life and mental wellbeing of both children and parents, posing serious challenges to family stability and sustainable social development. As the primary living environment for children and parents, communities play a crucial role in meeting their daily needs. However, existing research largely proposes generalized child- and parent-friendly strategies at the urban scale, with limited attention paid to the development of targeted community-level childcare and parenting support environments. Grounded in Person-Environment (P-E) Fit Theory, this research develops an applied analytical framework for a Community Childcare and Parenting Support System (CCPSS). It aims to examine the associations between community environmental subsystems and the satisfaction of multi-level needs among children and parents, in order to enhance their wellbeing. A questionnaire survey was conducted in the communities within Heping District, Tianjin, China, collecting data from both children and parents. Pearson correlation analysis and random forest-based importance ranking were used to examine the associations and relative contributions of different community environmental subsystems to the need satisfaction levels of children and parents. The results indicate a significant positive correlation between the fulfillment of childcare and parenting needs and community environmental systems, with different environmental dimensions contributing to varying degrees. This research extends the application of P-E Fit Theory to the parenting context and provides theoretical and empirical evidence to inform the development of more targeted CCPSS at the community level.