The Long-Term Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Chinese Families and Adolescents

This chapter uses a transnational socioecological framework to organize evidence on the long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on Chinese families and adolescents in mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the Chinese American diaspora. The framework conceptualizes COVID-19 as a prolonged developmental turning point whose effects emerged through changing macrolevel policies and racialization; reorganized linkages among families, schools, peers, communities, and digital systems; and altered proximal family and individual processes. Across contexts, economic strain, work–life conflict, school disruption, and social isolation heightened risk, while supportive relationships, positive parenting, parental positivity, and parents’ and adolescents’ self-regulation supported adaptation. Divergent structural conditions generated distinct developmental pathways: Policy intensity and educational disruption were especially salient in Chinese contexts, whereas COVID-era racialization and racial-ethnic socialization were central in the United States. Outcomes were heterogeneous and time-dependent, with symptoms sometimes accumulating or re-emerging during reopening and postpolicy transitions. The review concludes with actionable directions for longitudinal research, family- and school-centered interventions, and policy that supports developmental recovery in the aftermath.