How Parenting Affects Children’s Futures: Empirical Study in Japan

Abstract

 In this study, we conducted a survey on Japanese adults about the way they were raised in their childhood and analyzed the influence of parenting method on children's futures. Using the major factor method, we conducted principal factor analysis of the responses from a 20-question survey of Japanese adults to assess the parent-child relationship during childhood. Four factors (-interest‖,-trust‖,-norm‖, and-independence‖) are derived. We added-time spent together‖ with parent(s) and parent's-strict discipline‖ to the indices and classified the parenting methods into five types: (1) supportive, (2) tiger, (3) indulgent, (4) uninvolved, and (5) abusive. Then we compared the average earnings, sense of well-being, and educational career of the respondents classified according to the parenting type. Among the five types, the-supportive‖ type showed the highest achievement in all the three items, and the-abusive‖ type the lowest in all the items.