The effects of adult children's marriage-delay on parents' mental health

자녀의 결혼지연이 부모의 정신건강에 미치는 영향

Objective: This study aimed to examine the effects of adult children's marriage-delay on their parents' mental health. Furthermore, this study investigated how the influence of adult children's marriage-delay on parents' mental health could vary depending on the coresidence and employment status of the marriage-delayed adult children. Method: Two waves of Korean Longitudinal Study of Ageing (KLoSA) were used for the analyses. Multiple regression models were conducted with 2,938 Korean parents who had at least one child, regardless of gender (aged 33~44). Results: First, adult children's marriage-delay was related to lower levels of parents' life satisfaction. Second, the levels of parents' life satisfaction were low regardless of residing with their marriage-delayed adult children, and the parents who were not living with their marriage-delayed adult children showed lower levels of life satisfaction than parents living with marriage-delayed adult children. Third, only the parents with unemployed marriage-delayed adult children showed significantly higher levels of depression. However, the levels of parents' life satisfaction were low regardless of the employment of marriage-delayed adult children, and the parents of unemployed marriage-delayed adult children showed lower levels of life satisfaction than the parents of employed marriage-delayed adult children. Conclusions: It is necessary to consider the effects of marriage, employment and coresidence of adult children on their parents in order to enhance the mental health of the parents. Also, the effects of marriage-delay on intimate relationships, such as family dynamics, need to be explored more in further research.