Family relationships and adjustment during emerging adulthood in Spain

Abstract

Western post-industrial society has experienced a lot of economic, social and cultural changes in the last decades. These have affected most families’ daily life. The transition to adulthood has been prolonged and young people are delaying moving out from their parents’ homes until well over the age of twenty. This fact requires a readjustment in the family relationship system. However, limited research focusses on family relationships during emerging adulthood. Most of them have been carried out in the United States. Nevertheless, there is a lack of studies in Spain about family relationships during emerging adulthood from a psychological point of view. This paper has two aims. First, to analyse the quality of the relationship between emerging adults and their parents. Second, to assess the link between family bonds and emerging adults’ psychological well-being and distress. The present study involves 1502 university students (903 women and 599 men) aged between 18 and 29 (Mean: 20.32; SD: 2.13) participating in the Transition to Adulthood in Spain (TAE) research project. Participants completed a questionnaire that included sociodemographic variables (gender and age), family subscale of the Spanish adaptation of the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS) (Landeta & Calvete, 2002), The Perception of Parents Scale (POPS) (Compilation from Grolnick, Deci & Ryan, 1997; Grolnick, Ryan & Deci, 1991; Robbinson, 1994), Spanish adaptation of the Psychological Well-Being Scale (PWBS) (Diaz et al., 2006) and the Spanish adaptation of the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21) (Bados, Solanas & Andres, 2005). Our results are twofold: Firstly, emerging adults perceived positive family relationships in general terms. Moreover, young women noticed better family relationships than young men. Secondly, in emerging adults, both males and females, who sensed better family relationships showed a higher level of general psychological well-being and a lower level of general psychological distress. Our data show that emerging adults perceive a high level of parent social support, involvement, autonomy support and warmth. For that reason, the family seems to be a relevant source of support during emerging adulthood. Furthermore, positive family relationships could be a protective factor for emerging adults’ adjustment in both females and males. Thereby, it can be mentioned that the quality of family relationships is an essential factor for the positive development of young people. In brief, our study has two relevant implications. On one hand, our work underlines the need of social policies in order to promote positive parent-child relationships not just during infancy or adolescence, but also during emerging adulthood. On the other hand, encouraging equal parental practices for females and males is necessary also during emerging adulthood.