The Direction of Incongruence Matters: Low Maternal and High Paternal Marital Satisfaction Linked to Higher Depression in Emerging Adult Daughters

With studies primarily focusing on the influence of individual parents' marital satisfaction, less is known about the combined influence of fathers and mothers. Using polynomial regressions and response surface analyses, this study aims to explore the congruence and incongruence between fathers' marital satisfaction and mothers' marital satisfaction on child depression by the child's developmental stage and gender. Participants were 902 Chinese one-child families (in terms of child gender, 41.7% were girls and 58.3% were boys; in terms of child age, 49.7% were emerging adults and 50.3% were minors). Compared to the inconsistent high mother/low father marital satisfaction direction, emerging adult daughter depression was higher when in the inconsistent low mother/high father marital satisfaction direction. On congruence, emerging adult daughters were less depressed when the degree of congruence between father and mother marital satisfaction tended to be moderate. These results emphasize that depression interventions for emerging adults should consider the combined influence of fathers' and mothers' marital satisfaction.