The death of an adult child and trajectories of parental depressive symptoms: A gender-based longitudinal analysis

Rationale: Despite the existing body of research on the impact of child bereavement, little is known about whether time to the death of an adult child is longitudinally associated with changes in depressive symptoms among older parents. Objective: This study examines (a) trajectories of depressive symptoms before and after the loss of an adult child and (b) whether these trajectories differ across parent-child gender dyads (father-son, father-daughter, motherson, and mother-daughter). Methods: Using eight waves of the Korean Longitudinal Study of Ageing (KLoSA), this study employs fixed effects models to mitigate potential bias due to unobserved individual-level heterogeneity. Gender-stratified fixed effects models were estimated to investigate potential heterogeneity in the trajectories of depressive symptoms by parent-child gender dyads. Results: The result of this study revealed that depressive symptoms increased within the first year following the loss of an adult child among bereaved parents. Within a year of the loss of a child, both mothers and fathers experienced an increase in depressive symptoms. However, only fathers experienced lasting effects for up to two years. Different patterns in psychological adjustment to bereavement were observed across different parent-child gender dyads. Among daughter-bereaved fathers, depressive symptoms surged within the first year and persisted even beyond the fourth year of loss. In contrast, for other dyads, only an immediate rise in depressive symptoms within the first year of loss was observed. Conclusions: The loss of an adult child increases the depressive symptoms of parents. This study highlights the importance of considering the different trajectories of psychological adjustment to bereavement, particularly based on parent-child gender dyads, when formulating policies for providing psychological support to older parents who have experienced the loss of their child.