Parental ethnicity and adolescent development: evidence from a nationally representative dataset

Adolescent developmental outcomes can vary significantly by differences in ethnicity. While previous studies have examined the impacts of adolescents’ own ethnicity on their development, little research has been conducted about the impacts of the ethnicity of both parents as an important family background factor which is likely to expose adolescents to a variety of growth environments. Using nationally representative data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) surveys, we examine the relationship between parental ethnicity (including both monoethnic families and interethnic families with intermarried Han and ethnic minority groups) and adolescent developmental outcomes, measured by academic performance, cognitive development, and health. Our results show that adolescents with interethnic parents had higher scores in literacy and mathematics tests than those of monoethnic non-Han parents, but their scores were not statistically significantly different from those in monoethnic Han families. Adolescents with interethnic parents also performed better in fluid intelligence assessments and had lower obesity rates than those with monoethnic ethnic minority parents. Our results further suggest that socioeconomic status, parental education, and education expectations partially mediate the association between interethnic parents and adolescent development. Moreover, parental ethnic composition acts as a potential moderator that influences the effects of parents’ non-agricultural work on adolescent development. Our study expands the growing body of empirical evidence on the relationship between parental ethnicity and adolescent development and is conducive to policy recommendations for interventions in the development of adolescents with ethnic minority parents.