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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2017 Feb 1.
Published in final edited form as: J Marriage Fam. 2015 Sep 14;78(1):91–106. doi: 10.1111/jomf.12248

Familism Values, Family Time, and Mexican-Origin Young Adults’ Depressive Symptoms

Katharine H Zeiders 1, Kimberly A Updegraff 2, Adriana J Umaña-Taylor 3, Susan M McHale 4, Jenny Padilla 5
PMCID: PMC4712955  NIHMSID: NIHMS723217  PMID: 26778855

Abstract

Using longitudinal data across eight years, this study examined how parents’ familism values in early adolescence predicted youths’ depressive symptoms in young adulthood via youths’ familism values and family time. We examined these processes among 246 Mexican-origin families using interview and phone-diary data. Findings revealed that fathers’ familism values predicted male and female youths’ familism values in middle adolescence. For female youth only, fathers’ familism values also predicted youths’ family time in late adolescence. The link between family time and young adults’ depressive symptoms depended on parental acceptance and adolescent gender: Among female and male youth, family time predicted fewer depressive symptoms, but only when paternal acceptance was high. For female adolescents only, family time predicted fewer depressive symptoms when maternal acceptance was high but more depressive symptoms when maternal acceptance was low. Findings highlight family dynamics as the mechanisms through which familism values have implications for youths’ adjustment.

Keywords: culture, depression, family processes, Latinos, values

Familism values have attracted the attention of family and developmental scholars who study how cultural values, beliefs, and behaviors influence youths’ adjustment (Gonzales, Germán, & Fabrett, 2012; Szapocznik, Kurtines, Sanstisteban, & Rio, 1990). Familism refers to individuals’ identification with and attachment to family, and it is characterized by a sense of responsibility, loyalty, and solidarity among family members (Sabogal, Marín, Otero-Sabogal, Marín, & Perez-Stable, 1987). Among Latinos, familism is a core cultural value, with research documenting that Latino youth and adults display higher levels of familism values than their European American counterparts do (Hardway & Fuligni, 2006; Sabogal et al., 1987; Telzer & Fuligni, 2009). Familism values are theorized to promote positive development and protect Latino youth from risk during adolescence (Gonzales et al., 2012): Higher familism values predict lower levels of externalizing and internalizing symptoms among Latino youth (Gonzales et al., 2011; Zeiders et al., 2013), and in some instances, they protect youth from risky contexts (Germán, Gonzales, & Dumka, 2009). We know little, however, about the mechanisms that underlie the protective effects of familism values.

Guided by the developmental niche framework (Super & Harkness, 1986), ethnic socialization theories (Knight, Bernal, Garza, Cota, & Ocampo, 1993; Umaña-Taylor, Alfaro, Bámaca, & Guimond, 2009), and cultural theorizing on the behavioral aspects of familism values in Latino families (Calzada, Tamis-LeMonda, & Yoshikawa, 2012; Gonzales et al., 2012), the current study examined how parents’ familism values were linked to youths’ familism values and family time, and in turn, to youths’ adjustment in young adulthood. Specifically, we followed families across an eight-year period to test whether mothers’ and fathers’ familism values (and the interaction of their values), measured when offspring were in early adolescence, predicted youths’ familism values in middle adolescence and, in turn, the proportion of time youth spent in shared activities with family members in late adolescence. Family time in late adolescence was then linked to youths’ depressive symptoms in young adulthood. We focused on the largest national-origin group within the U.S. Latino population, Mexican-origin youth (U.S. Census Bureau, 2014), and tested these processes during a developmental period in which youths’ cultural values are salient (Knight, Jacobson, Gonzales, Roosa, & Saenz, 2009), youths’ family involvement declines (Larson, Richards, Moneta, Holmbeck, & Duckett, 1996), and youths’ depressive symptoms increase (Zahn-Waxler, Shirtcliff, & Marceau, 2008). Further, we investigated familism values of multiple family members (i.e., mothers, fathers, adolescents) to understand the unique contributions of members’ values to family and developmental processes.

Background

Parents’ Familism Values, Youths’ Familism Values, and Family Time

Our ideas about the links among parents’ familism values, youths’ familism values, and family members’ time are informed by Super and Harkness's (1986) developmental niche framework and theories of family ethnic socialization (Knight et al., 1993; Umaña-Taylor et al., 2009). A developmental niche refers to the immediate, culturally structured environment in which socialization plays out and includes three components: psychology of the parent, physical and social setting, and cultural customs and interactions. The psychology of the parent encompasses parents’ cultural orientations or belief systems and is theorized to drive parenting strategies, both in the immediate context and across development. The physical and social setting includes the larger cultural contexts of youths’ daily lives. Along with other socialization agents, parents provide constraints and affordances within these settings, on the basis of their socialization goals. Cultural customs and interactions include behaviors and activities that parents and others enact, including in their socialization efforts. These three components work in tandem and dynamically to influence youth development (Super & Harkness, 1986).

Extending this framework to study Mexican-origin youths’ developmental niches in the United States requires the consideration of family ethnic socialization, or the processes by which children acquire ethnic-salient values, attitudes, and behaviors in their family context (Knight et al., 1993; Knight et al., 2011). Parents are key socializing agents for their children (Knight et al., 1993; Umaña-Taylor et al., 2009), and the socialization of values is particularly important in adolescence, a developmental period characterized by youths’ internalization of values (Knight et al., 2009). In line with the developmental niche framework, familism values, as a component of parents’ psychology, may drive parents to adopt particular parenting strategies and structure the settings of their children's lives in particular ways. For example, parents’ familism values may encourage and structure adolescents’ time in daily activities with family members. However, given the salience of family socialization of values during adolescence, parents’ values may also have implications for adolescents’ own values and in turn predict adolescents’ time allocation. That is, parents’ emphasis on family may encourage youth to endorse greater familism values in middle adolescence, with the result that youth spend more time with family during late adolescence.

Empirical work examining the behavioral correlates of familism values suggests that parents’ values may relate to the structuring of their children's activities and daily life. For instance, qualitative work exploring Dominican- and Mexican-origin mothers’ familism values suggests that these mothers emphasize shared daily activities among family members (Calzada et al., 2012). Specifically, mothers described the importance of and preference for family members to spend time together and their efforts to structure activities to include family members. Findings also suggest that youths’ familism values predict the ways they spend time with their families. For instance, Mexican American, Chinese American, and European American high school students’ familism attitudes were related to youths’ reports of spending more leisure time with family and more time helping their families on a daily basis (Hardway & Fuligni, 2006). There is, however, no empirical study investigating the link among parents’ familism values, youths’ familism values, and family activities over time.

An additional consideration in the current study was the potentially unique and interactive roles of mothers and fathers (Parke & Buriel, 2006). In Latino families, traditional gender role attitudes (Cauce & Domenech-Rodríguez, 2002; Raffaelli & Ontai, 2004) emphasize the maternal role, with mothers typically assuming the majority of child rearing, caregiving (Adams, Coltrane, & Parke, 2007; Umaña-Taylor & Updegraff, 2012), and socialization activities, including cultural- and gender-related socialization (Knight et al., 2011; Raffaelli & Ontai, 2004). Recent research on Latinos underscores the significance of fathers, with some work showing that fathers’ role and impact may be distinct from mothers’ (Cabrera, Aldoney, & Tamis-LeMonda, 2013). For instance, among Mexican-origin families with adolescents, mothers’ familism values predicted greater maternal warmth (White, Roosa, & Zeiders, 2012), whereas fathers’ familism values predicted greater paternal warmth and family cohesion (White & Roosa, 2012). Note, however, that mothers’ and fathers’ values were tested in separate studies and that only the cross-sectional relation between familism and parenting behaviors was examined; thus, it is not clear how mothers’ and fathers’ values function simultaneously or interactively, or how their values influence family processes over time. In a similar vein, in a cross-sectional examination of the link between Mexican-origin youths’ deviant peer associations and externalizing problems, fathers’ and mothers’ familism values (tested in separate models) emerged as protective; however, fathers’ familism values were the most consistent correlates, emerging as protective across multiple reporters of youths’ externalizing problems (Germán et al., 2009). Together, such findings underscore the importance of considering both mothers’ and fathers’ familism values, as well as the need to test simultaneously whether mothers’ and fathers’ familism values in early adolescence individually and interactively predicted youths’ familism values and family.

Family Time, Family Relationships, and Youths’ Adjustment

We also tested whether family time in late adolescence had implications for adjustment in young adulthood. Within the developmental niche framework (Super & Harkness, 1986), youths’ social settings influence their development and adjustment. Our interest was in how the family social setting, measured in terms of youths’ time with family members, had longer-term implications for depressive symptoms in young adulthood. As Larson and Richards (1994) explained, shared family time provides opportunities for family members to “replenish themselves and affirm their experience of we-ness” (p. 217). Specific to adolescents’ experiences, time with family members also can be “an important respite from the frenzied world of peers and the demands of school” (p. 99). Indeed, cross-sectional work suggests that youths’ family time is linked to lower alcohol use, delinquency, and sexual activity in mid- to late adolescence (Barnes, Hoffman, Welt, Farrell, & Dintcheff, 2007), and there is longitudinal evidence that family time predicts lower risk-taking behaviors and fewer depressive symptoms during the same developmental period among European American adolescents (Crouter, Head, McHale, & Jenkins Tucker, 2004). We extended this work to test whether family time predicted lower levels of depressive symptoms in young adulthood in a sample of Mexican-origin youth.

We also examined the emotional tone of parent–adolescent relationships as a potential moderator of the links between family time and young adult adjustment. Although family time is generally considered a support, the degree to which individuals benefit from spending time with family members may depend on the quality of family relationships, especially during adolescence (Darling & Steinberg, 1993; Larson & Richards, 1994). Adolescents who spend time with family members whom they also perceive as emotionally available and supportive are likely to benefit the most, given that supportive relationships, such as those with parents, are linked to more positive development and adjustment (Ge, Best, Conger, & Simons, 1996). For example, parental acceptance in the context of family time may facilitate communication and problem solving, enhance youths’ feelings of connectedness to their families, and diffuse the negative effects of youths’ daily challenges (Larson & Richards, 1994). Accordingly, we tested the prediction that parental acceptance would interact with family time, such that higher levels of both would predict lower levels of depressive symptoms over time.

The Moderating Role of Adolescent Gender

Finally, we explored the role of youth gender in these linkages. Adolescent females, including those of Mexican origin, display more depressive symptoms than adolescent males (Zahn-Waxler et al., 2008; Zeiders et al., 2013), and in prior research, gender emerged as a factor in family processes, including Latino parents’ socialization strategies (Cauce & Domenech-Rodríguez, 2002; Crockett & Russell, 2013). Traditional gender attitudes and norms, for example, may lead parents to expect that adolescent females will spend more time at home, assisting with child care and household work, whereas adolescent males are granted more autonomy (Cauce & Domenech-Rodríguez, 2002; Raffaelli & Ontai, 2004; Valenzuela, 1999). Parent gender also may matter: Latina mothers spend more time with their daughters and report a greater role in daughters’ socialization, whereas Latino fathers report spending more time with their sons and emphasize their role in sons’ socialization (Raffaelli & Ontai, 2004; Updegraff, Delgado, & Wheeler, 2009). Accordingly, we explored whether adolescent gender moderated the links among fathers’ and/or mothers’ familism values, youths’ familism values, and youths’ family time. Given mothers’ role as models and socialization agents for their daughters and fathers’ role for their sons, we explored the possibility that familism values of the same-gender parent would be stronger predictors of youths’ own familism values and youths’ family time.

Turning to adjustment outcomes in young adulthood, another line of research on gender reveals that the quality of interpersonal relationships, including family relationships, is more tightly linked to psychological well-being in female than male youth, possibly because female youth place greater importance on relationship qualities such as loyalty and closeness (Flook, 2011; Telzer & Fuligni, 2013). Accordingly, we explored the possibilities that family time was more strongly associated with young women's depressive symptoms than young men's and that the moderating role of parental acceptance in the links between family time and depressive symptoms was stronger for female than for male youth.

The Current Study

Given the goal of illuminating how parents’ familism values have implications for family processes and youth adjustment, the current study focused on Mexican-origin mothers’ and fathers’ familism values as predictors of adolescents’ familism values, adolescents’ family time, and in turn, their depressive symptoms in young adulthood. Using data from four phases of an eight-year longitudinal study that corresponded with the developmental periods of early adolescence, middle adolescence, late adolescence, and young adulthood, we tested three hypotheses. First, we hypothesized that mothers’ and fathers’ familism values in early adolescence would positively predict youths’ proportion of time spent with family members in late adolescence (controlling for youths’ prior levels of family time). We tested whether parental familism directly predicted family time, or whether this link was mediated via youths’ familism values in middle adolescence. Second, we hypothesized that family time in late adolescence would predict fewer depressive symptoms in young adulthood (controlling for depressive symptoms in early adolescence), particularly when adolescents reported high levels of maternal and paternal acceptance. Finally, given the importance of gender in this cultural context, we explored whether processes differed for male and female youth with respect to their experiences with mothers versus with fathers.

METHOD

Participants and Procedures

Data came from a longitudinal study focused on cultural and family socialization processes among 246 two-parent Mexican-origin families (McHale, Updegraff, Shanahan, Crouter, & Killoren, 2005). Participating families were recruited through schools in a metropolitan area of the U.S. Southwest and met three participation criteria: (a) family membership included a seventh grader (target child), at least one older adolescent sibling, a biological mother and a biological or adoptive father (all nonbiological fathers had lived with the target children for at least 10 years) living together, (b) mothers were of Mexican-origin, and (c) fathers were employed for pay for at least 20 hours per week. Though not a study requirement, most fathers (i.e., 93%) also were of Mexican origin. To recruit families, letters and brochures (in both English and Spanish) that described the study were sent to families, and follow-up telephone calls were made by bilingual staff to determine each family's eligibility and interest in participation. Families’ names were obtained from five school districts and five parochial schools. Schools were selected to represent a range of socioeconomic situations, with the proportion of students receiving free or reduced-price lunch varying from 8% to 82% across schools.

The longitudinal study had four phases (starting in 2002 and ending in 2010): Phase 1 (P1), when the target adolescent was in seventh grade; Phase 2 (P2), approximately 2 years after P1; Phase 3 (P3), approximately 5 years after P1; and Phase 4 (P4), approximately 7 years after P1. All family members (mother, father, target adolescent, and older sibling) were invited to participate in P1, P3, and P4; only the target adolescent was invited to participate in P2. The current study used parents’ data at P1, and target adolescents’ data at P1, P2, P3, and P4. Target adolescents’ self-reported average age was 12.55 (SD = .60), 14.64 (SD = .59), 17.72 (SD = .57), and 19.60 (SD = .66) at P1 (early adolescence), P2 (middle adolescence), P3 (late adolescence), and P4 (young adulthood), respectively.

At P1, families represented a range of education and income levels (from poverty to upper class). The median income was $41,000, and the average income was $53,184 (SD = $45,381; range = $3,000 to more than $250,000). A majority of youth were born in the United States (62%), whereas a majority of parents were born outside the United States (71%). At P1, 84% of youth, 34% of mothers, and 32% of fathers chose to be interviewed in English. At P1, mothers reported their age as 38.80 (SD = 4.63), and fathers reported their age as 41.49 (SD = 5.77) years old. At P1, all youth lived with their mother and father. At P2, P3, and P4, 91%, 89%, and 61% of participating youth lived with both their mother and father, respectively. At P2, P3, and P4, 8%, 6%, and 6%, respectively, lived with just their mother, and 1%, 1%, and 3%, respectively, lived with just their father. At P3 and P4, 4% and 29%, respectively, lived with neither their father nor with their mother.

To evaluate sample representativeness, we compared our sample relative to Mexican-origin-headed two-parent families in the county from which the sample was drawn (U.S. Census Bureau, 2000). We found that similar percentages of families met federal poverty guidelines (18.3% and 18.6%, respectively), and that similar percentages of mothers (19.1%) and fathers (22.4%) completed high school relative to Mexican female (22.1%) and male (20.3%) adults in the county. Median household income was slightly higher in our two-parent sample ($41,000) relative to the county ($32,000). In terms of nativity, 59% of family members in the sample (71% of parents and 37.8% of adolescents), compared to 42% of Mexican Americans in the county, were foreign born.

At P2, P3, and P4, 91% (N = 223), 75% (N = 185), and 70% (N = 173) of the original 246 families participated, respectively. Those who did not participate could not be located (n = 10 at P2; n = 44 at P3; n = 45 at P4), had moved to Mexico (n = 0 at P2; n = 2 at P3; n = 4 at P4), could not presently participate or were difficult to contact (n = 0 at P2; n = 5 at P3; n = 12 at P4), or refused to participate (n = 13 at P2; n = 10 at P3; n = 12 at P4). Of the families that participated at P3 and P4, 80% and 77% of the three family members—mother, father, and target child—participated, respectively. We examined differences between participating families (in which at least one family member participated) and nonparticipating families (no family member participated) on P1 family demographics (parental education, household income), P1 maternal and paternal familism values, P1 youth familism values, P1 family time, and P1 youth depressive symptoms. There were no differences between participating and nonparticipating families at P2 on these variables. At P3, participating families differed from nonparticipating families on P1 maternal education (M = 10.62, SD = 3.80 vs. M = 9.48, SD = 3.45), P1 family income (M = $59,517, SD = $48,395 vs. M = $37,632, SD =$28,606, respectively), and P1 youth familism (M = 4.30, SD = .46 vs. M = 4.14, SD = .66). At P4, participating families differed from nonparticipating families on P1 maternal education (M = 10.75, SD = 3.75 vs. M = 9.35, SD = 3.53), P1 paternal education (M = 10.46, SD = 4.37 vs. M = 8.49, SD = 4.08), P1 family income (M = $59,136, SD = $46,674 vs. M = $41,635, SD =$39,095), and P1 youth depressive symptoms (M = 15.54, SD = 9.44 vs. M = 18.53, SD = 10.70).

Procedures

Data were collected from mothers, fathers, and youth using two procedures at P1, P3, and P4: Home interviews and a series of phone-diary interviews. Data at P2 were collected via a phone interview with the target adolescent (using a procedure similar to the home interview). During in-home interviews, which lasted an average of 3 hours for parents and 2 hours for adolescents, family members provided informed consent and assent for youth younger than age 18 and then participated in individual interviews conducted by bilingual staff. All questions were read aloud to each family member, and answers were recorded on laptop computers. Phone-diary interviews were conducted during the 3–4 weeks following the home interviews; families were telephoned on seven occasions (five weekday evenings and two weekend evenings) and reported on their activities during the 24-hour period that ended at 5 p.m. on the day of the call. Families received honoraria for in-home interviews ($100) and phone interviews ($100) with all four family members at Phase 1; target adolescents received $40 at Phase 2, families received $125 for home and phone interviews at Phase 3, and each family member received $75 at Phase 4 for home and phone interviews. The university's Institutional Review Board approved all procedures.

Measures

All measures were forward and back translated independently into Spanish by two individuals, and the research team resolved any discrepancies.

Familism values

Mothers’ and fathers’ familism values at P1 and youths’ familism values at P1 and P2 were assessed using the familism subscale (16 items) of the Mexican American Cultural Values Scale (MACVS; Knight et al., 2010). The MACVS, developed with Mexican-origin adolescents and parents, has demonstrated adequate reliability and construct validity (Knight et al., 2010). Participants used a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) to rate their agreement on items (e.g., “It is always important to be united as a family”). Items were averaged; high scores indicated stronger familism values. Cronbach's alphas were .76 and .84 for P1 maternal familism and .87 and .81 for P1 paternal familism in English and Spanish, respectively. For youth, alphas ranged from .82 to .95 for P1 and P2 familism in English and Spanish.

Family time

Adolescents’ reports of family time were assessed using phone data at P1 and P3. On each of the seven phone calls at each phase, adolescents were guided through a list of 86 activities and probed for both duration (in minutes) and social contexts (i.e., with whom the adolescents engaged in activities) using a cued-recall procedure (McHale, Crouter, & Bartko, 1992). The list of activities was piloted on a local sample and designed to capture the full range of activities that youth engaged in during their nonschool hours. These included household tasks, homework, leisure (e.g., athletics, extracurricular activities, entertainment, socializing), and other activities (e.g., religious activities, eating meals). To compute family time, we summed across the amounts of time that adolescents spent in shared activities that involved only members of their nuclear family (i.e., mother, father, siblings) across all activities and all seven phone calls. The proportion of time youth spent in activities with family members was then computed by dividing family time by the total time spent in all activities across all seven phone calls. The most commonly reported family time activities were doing housework, watching TV, and eating meals together. Correlations between adolescents’ and their older siblings’ reports of their shared time (r = .90, p < .001, at P1; r = .79, p < .001, at P3), were calculated to determine the interreporter reliability of adolescents’ time-use reports, and they suggested substantial agreement across reporters.

Parental acceptance

Adolescents reported on maternal and paternal acceptance at P3 using an eight-item subscale of the Child's Report of Parental Behavior Inventory (CRPBI; Schaefer, 1965). Work with Latino youth and mothers (primarily of Mexican origin) provided evidence of construct validity and established cross-ethnic equivalence (Knight, Tein, Shell, & Roosa, 1992) and language equivalence (Nair, White, Knight, & Roosa, 2009). Youth reported on items (e.g., “My mother/father makes me feel better after talking over my worries with her/him”) using a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (almost never) to 5 (almost always). Items were averaged to create separate acceptance scales for mothers and fathers, and Cronbach's alphas ranged from .94 to .95 for mothers and fathers in English and Spanish.

Adolescents’ depressive symptoms

Adolescents’ depressive symptoms were assessed at P1 and P4 using the 20-item (e.g., “I had crying spells”) Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D; Radloff, 1977), rated on a 4-point scale ranging from 0 (rarely or none of the time) to 3 (all of the time). Scores were averaged, and higher scores reflect more depressive symptoms. Adequate reliability and construct validity in other Latino samples, as well as cross-ethnic equivalence across European American and Mexican-origin youth, have been documented (Crockett, Randall, Shen, Russell, & Driscoll, 2005). Cronbach's alphas in English and Spanish at P1 were .86 and .84, respectively, and at P4 were .90 and .79, respectively.

Family socioeconomic status

At P1, mothers and fathers reported on their education (“What is the highest level of education you completed?”), their household income (“Thinking about all the jobs and self-employment you may have had during the last year, how much did you earn, before taxes and other deductions, in the past 12 months?”), and public assistance (“In the past 12 months, did anyone in your household receive public assistance or welfare payments? How much did your household receive in public assistance payments each month?”). Family household income was computed using the income and public assistance responses. A log transformation was applied to household income to correct for skewness. Household income and mothers’ and fathers’ education were standardized and averaged to compute family socioeconomic status (SES) at P1 (α = .78).

Results

Analytic Approach

The longitudinal mediational model was tested using path analysis in a structural equation modeling framework using Mplus 7.2 (Muthén & Muthén, 1998–2014). We examined whether mothers’ and fathers’ P1 familism values independently (a1 and a2 paths) and interactively (a3 path) predicted youths’ P2 familism values, controlling for youths’ P1 familism values. We also examined whether parents’ P1 familism values and youths’ P2 familism values predicted P3 family time (b path; controlling for P1 family time) and, in turn, how P3 family time predicted youths’ P4 depressive symptoms (c path; controlling for P1 depressive symptoms). To examine the moderating role of parent–adolescent acceptance in the link between P3 family time and youths’ P4 depressive symptoms, we included mother and father P3 acceptance in the model as main effects on depressive symptoms, as well as P3 family time by P3 mother acceptance and P3 family time by P3 father acceptance interaction terms. Because family income has been found to be related to family time (Crouter et al., 2004) and to youths’ depressive symptoms (Dearing, McCartney, & Taylor, 2006), P1 family socioeconomic status was included as a control variable on P3 family time and P4 depressive symptoms. All variables in the model (except P4 depressive symptoms) were standardized, and interaction terms were created by calculating the product of the two standardized variables. Interactions were probed according to Aiken and West (1991). Given the interest in process differences by adolescent gender, we used multigroup analysis, with adolescent gender as the grouping variable (0 = male, 1 = female). The first model estimated all parameters freely across adolescent gender (unconstrained model). A second model estimated all parameters fixed across adolescent gender (constrained model). A chi-squared difference test was conducted to determine whether there was a significant difference between the fully unconstrained and constrained model. A significant chi-squared statistic was then followed up with a series of analyses testing gender equivalence across each of the paths of interest. In each analysis, a significant chi-squared difference test would suggest that the individual path differed for adolescent males versus females. A nonsignificant chi-squared difference test would suggest that the path of interest did not differ for males and females.

Mediation was tested using the product of coefficients, with the multivariate delta method of deriving the standard error in Mplus (Sobel, 1986). Multiple fit indices (χ2; comparative fit index, CFI; root mean square error of approximation, RMSEA; and standardized root mean square residual, SRMR) were used to assess model fit; good (acceptable) model fit is reflected by a nonsignificant chi-squared test, CFI greater than or equal to .95 (.90), RMSEA less than or equal to .05 (.08), and SRMR less than .05 (.08; Hu & Bentler, 1999; Kline, 2005). Missing data were accounted for using full information maximum likelihood (FIML; Enders, 2010). FIML utilizes the expectation and maximization (EM) algorithm to obtain parameter estimates and standard errors, accounting for missing data patterns in the analyses. Attrition analyses revealed differences on P1 SES between participating families and nonparticipating families. Thus, P1 SES was included in all models to enable the estimation procedure to account for SES in patterns of missingness.

Test of Hypothesized Paths and Moderation Effects

Table 1 presents descriptive statistics and bivariate correlations by adolescent gender. First, we estimated a fully unconstrained model across adolescent gender; model fit statistics indicated good fit across indices (χ2 (32) = 27.28, p = .70; CFI = 1.00, RMSEA = .00, SRMR = .04). Second, we estimated a fully constrained model across adolescent gender; model fit statistics indicated poor fit (χ2 (55) = 72.25, p =.059; CFI = .68, RMSEA = .05, SRMR = .07), significantly poorer than the fully unconstrained model (χ2Δ (23) = 44.97, p < .01). Given this, we focused on the fully unconstrained model and tested whether specific paths of interest differed significantly by adolescent gender. Results revealed gender differences in five paths: (a) the direct path from P1 family SES to P3 family time (χ2Δ (1) = 8.58, p < .01); (b) the direct path from P1 fathers’ familism to P3 family time (χ2Δ (1) = 3.94, p < .05); (c) the direct path from P1 SES to P4 youths’ depressive symptoms (χ2Δ (1) = 4.80, p < .05); (d) the direct path from P1 mother familism values to P4 depressive symptoms (χ2Δ (1) = 10.45, p < .01); (e) and the P3 family time by P3 maternal acceptance interaction effect on P4 depressive symptoms (χ2Δ (1) = 10.39, p < .01). The final partially constrained model (Figure 1) demonstrated good fit (χ2 (47) = 37.55, p = .84; CFI = 1.00, RMSEA = .00, SRMR = .047). The R2 values, which provide an estimate of the level of variance explained in endogenous variables, for P2 familism value, P3 family time, and P4 depressive symptoms were .10 (p < .05), .17 (p < .05), and .62 (p < .001) for female youths and .10 (p < .05), .21 (p < .05), and .12 (p = .06) for male youths, respectively.

Table 1.

Correlations, Means, and Standard Deviations (SDs) for Study Variables (N = 246)

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.
1. M familism (P1) — .28** .15† .20* .03 .25* –.02 .14 .06 .11 –.27**
2. F familism (P1) .15† — .10 .12 –.06 .15 .36** –.06 –.01 .07 –.33***
3. Y familism (P1) –.05 .02 — .17† .04 .16 .05 –.04 –.28** –.14 .11
4. Y familism (P2) –.01 .28** .26** — .02 –.03 –.02 .15 –.01 .02 –.10
5. Family time (P1) .06 .17† –.05 –.05 — .32** .02 .14 .15 .12 –.12
6. Family time (P3) .09 .33** .01 .07 .22* — .08 .38** .24* .06 –.33**
7. M acceptance (P3) .15 .01 .05 .10 –.04 .18 — .20 –.12 –.06 –.01
8. F acceptance (P3) .09 .05 .15 .25† –.12 .07 .44*** — .28* –.08 –.12
9. Depressive symptoms (P1) .11 –.07 –.22* –.11 –.09 –.00 –.29** –.39*** — .25* –.32***
10. Depressive symptoms (P4) –.28** .06 .15 –.01 –.15 –.13 –.23† –.21† .13 — –.25*
11. Family SES (P1) –.22* –.38*** .13 –.06 –.21* .00 .14 .06 –.21* .05 —
Female mean 4.43 4.41 4.25 4.26 .36 .17 3.95 3.52 .86 .74 .06
Female SD .40 .44 .51 .61 .15 .14 .95 1.09 .56 .49 .87
Male mean 4.44 4.51 4.27 4.34 .34 .16 3.90 3.38 .78 .60 –.08
Male SD .39 .40 .53 .56 .16 .12 .85 .96 .41 .37 .79
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Note. M = mother; F = father; Y = youth; Dep = depressive; SES = socioeconomic status; P1 = Phase 1; P2 = Phase 2; P3 = Phase 3; P4 = Phase 4. Female youth's (n = 125) correlations are reported below the diagonal; male youth's (n = 121) correlations are reported above the diagonal. Correlations, means, and standard deviations computed in MPLUS, accounting for missing data and utilizing full information maximum likelihood. Means for family time represent a proportion (family time divided by total time).

†

p < .10

*

p < .05

**

p < .01

***

p < .001.

Figure 1.

Figure 1

Open in a new tab

Partially constrained model linking P1 parents’ familism values to P4 youth depressive symptoms via P2 youth familism values and P3 family time (N = 246).

Note. Gray boxes (and corresponding gray paths) represent control variables; dashed lines represent nonsignificant paths. Paths with two coefficients represent paths that differed by adolescent gender; the first coefficient is adolescent females’ coefficient and the second (in brackets) is adolescent males’ coefficient. All coefficients presented are standardized; for paths constrained across gender, females’ standardized coefficients are presented.

†p < .10. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

With respect to the links from parents’ P1 familism values to youths’ P2 familism values, fathers’ familism values (but not mothers’) positively predicted youths’ familism values at P2, accounting for the stability in youths’ familism values across P1 and P2. The interaction of mothers’ and fathers’ P1 familism values was not significant. Youths’ P2 familism values did not predict P3 family time; however, for adolescent girls only, fathers’ P1 familism values predicted P3 family time, controlling for prior levels of family time (P1) and family SES. Similarly, for adolescent girls only, mothers’ P1 familism values directly predicted fewer P4 youth depressive symptoms. The linkage between family time and youths’ adjustment differed as a function of mother and father acceptance and by adolescent gender. First, for all youth (regardless of gender), P3 father acceptance moderated the association between P3 family time and P4 depressive symptoms: at high levels of father acceptance (1 SD above the mean), greater family time predicted fewer depressive symptoms (b = –.12, SE = .04, p < .01), but at low levels (1 SD below the mean), there was no association (b = .07, SE = .04, p = .09). Next, a significant interaction of P3 family time by P3 mother acceptance emerged for P4 youth depressive symptoms, but only among adolescent females: At high levels of maternal acceptance (1 SD above the mean), greater P3 family time predicted fewer P4 depressive symptoms (b = –.19, SE = .04, p < .001, whereas at low levels of maternal acceptance (1 SD below the mean), greater family time predicted more P4 depressive symptoms among females (b = .16, SE = .04, p < .001).

Mediation Test Linking Familism Values, Family Time, and Youths’ Depressive Symptoms

Given the complexity of the model and the differences by adolescent gender, we tested the mediational model linking familism values, family time, and youths’ depressive symptoms separately for female and male adolescents. For male adolescents, our results precluded the test of mediation from P1 parental familism to P4 depressive symptoms via P2 youths’ familism and P3 family time, because familism values (parental and youth) did not predict adolescent males’ family time. For adolescent females, however, we examined mediation from fathers’ P1 familism values to P4 depressive symptoms via P3 family time. Note that the path from P3 family time to P4 youth depressive symptoms was moderated by parental acceptance; thus, there was the potential for moderated mediation—that the mediating effect of P3 family time in the link between P1 father familism values and P4 depressive symptoms differed as a function of mothers’ and fathers’ acceptance. Following guidelines for testing moderated mediation (Tein, Sandler, MacKinnon, & Wolchik, 2004), we examined the mediated effect at low (1 SD below the mean) and high levels of the moderator (1 SD above the mean). First, given that P3 fathers’ acceptance interacted with P3 family time, we tested for mediation from P1 fathers’ familism to P4 depressive symptoms via P3 family time at low and high levels of P3 father acceptance. At high levels of father acceptance, the longitudinal link between fathers’ familism values and young adult females’ depressive symptoms was mediated by family time (ab = –.09, SE = .04, p < .05), but this link was not significant at low levels of father acceptance (ab = .04, SE = .03, p = .11). Second, because P3 mother acceptance interacted with P3 family time, we tested for moderated mediation linking P1 father familism values to P4 depressive symptoms via P3 family time at high and at low levels of P3 mother acceptance. Results revealed mediation at high levels of maternal acceptance (ab = –.11, SE = .04, p < .05) and at low levels of maternal acceptance (ab = .08, SE = .03, p < .05), but in the opposite direction. At high levels of P3 mother acceptance, P1 father familism values predicted greater P3 family time and, in turn, fewer P4 depressive symptoms. At low levels of P3 mother acceptance, P1 father familism values predicted greater P3 family time and, in turn, more P4 depressive symptoms in young adult females.

Discussion

Familism values are often discussed as exerting positive influences on Latino youth (Gonzales et al., 2012), but we know little about how they operate to benefit youth. Expanding on prior cross-sectional and short-term longitudinal studies during adolescence, we focused on familial processes that mediated the link between familism values, measured in early adolescence, and adjustment, measured in young adulthood. Guided by the developmental niche framework (Super & Harkness, 1986), ethnic socialization theories (Knight et al., 1993), and cultural theorizing on the mechanisms underlying familism values (Calzada et al., 2012; Gonzales et al., 2012), we hypothesized that youths’ familism values and family time would mediate the relations between Mexican-origin parents’ familism values, assessed when youth were in early adolescence, and depressive symptoms, assessed in young adulthood. We examined the moderating role of parental warmth in the link between family time and depressive symptoms, hypothesizing that family time would relate to fewer depressive symptoms in a context of high warmth but not low warmth. Our findings indicated that fathers’ familism values in early adolescence positively predicted youths’ familism values in middle adolescence. Among female youth only, however, fathers’ familism values also predicted family time in late adolescence. Finally, we found that the benefits of family time for depressive symptoms depended on youths’, particularly female youths’, reports of mothers’ and fathers’ acceptance, such that more positive psychological adjustment ensued only in the context of high parental acceptance. Together, our findings provide one of the first longitudinal examinations of Mexican-origin family processes related to familism values and highlight the need to examine the roles of mothers and fathers. Our findings also illuminated the family dynamics related to familism values: familism values may motivate particular activities within families, but the protective effects of familism values also rely on relationship dynamics within the family and individual characteristics of parents and youth.

Parents are key players in their children's cultural learning environments; their values and beliefs help structure the physical and social settings of their children's everyday lives (Super & Harkness, 1986). Familism values shape parenting goals and corresponding parenting strategies, including the ways parents structure their offspring's daily activities (Calzada et al., 2012). Given the importance of internalization of values during adolescence (Knight et al., 2009), parental familism values may serve an additional role: predicting adolescents’ own values, which in turn may influence the ways that adolescents spend their time. Prior work has linked youths’ familism values to their daily activities (Hardway & Fuligni, 2006), but we know little about how parents’ values relate to their offspring's development and adjustment over time, particularly beyond adolescence. Our findings revealed that fathers’ familism values, but not mothers’, predicted relative increases in youths’ familism values from early to middle adolescence. Youths’ familism values, however, did not predict youths’ family time. Instead, among female adolescents, fathers’ familism values in early adolescence predicted relative increases in family time by late adolescence, controlling for prior levels of family time.

These results underscore the significance of fathers and their familism values for Mexican-origin youth, which is important because fathers have been understudied in Latino families (Cabrera et al., 2013; Parke & Buriel, 2006). One explanation for why only fathers’ familism values were predictive of youths’ familism values centers on the structure of two-parent Mexican-origin families and mothers’ and fathers’ different parental roles. Latino culture is characterized by adherence to traditional gender roles, with fathers as household heads and authority figures (Adams et al., 2007; Umaña-Taylor & Updegraff, 2012). Thus, in two-parent Mexican-origin families, fathers’ values may be particularly influential in setting the tone for familial values and family members’ daily activities, particularly with daughters. When fathers emphasized the importance of family interconnectedness, we found that their sons and daughters increasingly ascribed to similar values. Further, for daughters, fathers’ emphasis on the importance of family may reinforce traditional gender roles that highlight the home and family orientations of females. Indeed, prior work has shown that Latina adolescents spend more time at home, whereas Latino adolescent males are granted more autonomy (Raffaelli & Ontai, 2004; Valenzuela, 1999). More generally, using longitudinal data, our study illuminated the significance of fathers in their children's family connectedness.

Interestingly, youths’ familism values in middle adolescence did not predict the proportion of time spent with family members in late adolescence. Adolescence is a time in which values, often socialized by parents, are internalized (Knight et al., 2009). Although we might expect that by later adolescence youths’ own values would be stronger predictors of their behaviors than those of their parents, this was not the case. Youth may internalize parents’ values; however, forces emanating from the world outside the home may pull youth into activities beyond the family, and the extra impetus of paternal values may be essential in maintaining the centrality of family activities in girls’ daily lives. In this regard, it is notable that neither fathers’ nor adolescent males’ own values predicted boys’ family time. Further research is needed to determine whether early familism values have implications for women's and men's time with their own families in young adulthood and beyond.

Mothers’ stronger familism values directly predicted relatively lower levels of depressive symptoms reported by daughters eight years later, taking into account their depressive symptoms in early adolescence. The findings contribute to literature on the role of familism values in youth adjustment, studies of which have been primarily cross sectional, and show that maternal values remain significant into their daughters’ young adult lives. The mediating processes hypothesized here, however, failed to explain this longitudinal relationship. Thus, future research should explore other family processes that may explain this linkage. For example, mothers’ familism values may be important in the emotional quality of the mother–daughter relationship and in facilitating daughters’ embeddedness in the larger extended family network (Knight et al., 2011), all processes that may have long term benefits for daughters’ mental health.

In addition to examining parents’ familism values and family time, we also assessed the link from family time in late adolescence to youths’ depressive symptoms in young adulthood. Given the significance of the emotional tone of parent–child relationships for youths’ mental health (Darling & Steinberg, 1993) and that the benefits of family time are strengthened in the context of positive family relationships (Larson & Richards, 1994), we examined adolescents’ reports of parental acceptance as moderators of the association between family time and depressive symptoms. Overall, our findings suggest that the benefits of family time depend on youths’ perceptions of parental acceptance. In fact, if we had not considered the moderating roles of parental acceptance, we might have concluded that the amount of time youth spent with family was not predictive of their depressive symptoms. Again, the longitudinal scope of this study enabled us to advance understanding of these processes by documenting the significance of the interacting dynamics over time and into young adulthood.

In the case of paternal acceptance, the combination of family time and the emotional tone of their relationship with their father had implications for both male and female young adults’ adjustment. By controlling for family time in early adolescence, we were able to demonstrate that family time in late adolescence remains important and, in an interaction with paternal acceptance, predicted fewer depressive symptoms in young adulthood. Prior research has documented that, within Latino families, relationship quality in father–youth dyads relates to male and female youths’ internalizing symptoms (Crean, 2008), and in some cases, fathers’ values and behaviors particularly influence children (Cabrera et al., 2013; Germán et al., 2009; White & Roosa, 2012). Our findings align with prior work, extend prior research to incorporate young adult outcomes, and underscore that it is critical to include fathers in research on the well-being and development of youth in this cultural group.

The significance of gender dynamics in Mexican-origin families was reinforced by findings that, in contrast to the correlates of family time and paternal acceptance, maternal acceptance emerged as a significant moderator only for female youth. The pattern was pronounced: When female youth reported high levels of maternal acceptance, greater family time predicted fewer depressive symptoms, but when maternal acceptance was low, greater family time was associated with more depressive symptoms. Together, our findings suggest that the relevance of the emotional tone of family context for youths’ depressive symptoms is most prominent among females, as both mothers’ and fathers’ acceptance moderated the association between family time and daughters’ depressive symptoms. Interpersonal theories of depression have emphasized the significance of family relationships in female youths’ depressive symptomatology (Rudolph, 2002). Female youth place a greater emphasis on close relationships than their male counterparts do, and disruptions in such relationships may be especially detrimental to their emotional well-being (Flook, 2011; Telzer & Fuligni, 2013). Close family relationships may be especially salient among Mexican-origin adolescent females, given the greater cultural emphasis on family and the importance of women in the familial context (Cauce & Domenech-Rodríguez, 2002; Valenzuela, 1999). Our findings align with these ideas and extend prior research in showing that both mothers’ and fathers’ acceptance is central to the implications of family time for Mexican-origin women in young adulthood.

At the most general level, our findings contribute insights into the role of parental cultural values, family processes, and youth well-being from adolescence to young adulthood. During a developmental period in which children's values are being internalized, parents’ values continue to play a role in shaping youths’ values and in structuring the settings of their children's daily lives. Our study also makes a broader contribution to understanding the role of familism values in Mexican-origin youth development by highlighting the unique roles of Mexican-origin fathers and mothers; fathers’ values relate to the ways that female youth spend time with family members, and mothers’ values relate to female youths’ well-being. For male youth, fathers’ values relate only to the development of their familism values. Our findings also suggest that parents’ familism values may activate certain family behaviors, but that the benefits of these behaviors depend on family relationship dynamics. Thus, to understand how familism values benefit youth, we must take the larger relational context of the family into account.

Our study included several methodological strengths that enhance its contribution, including reliance on data from multiple family members, multimodal data from in-home and phone-diary interviews, and a longitudinal design that involved assessing constructs across an eight-year period and extending into young adulthood. Despite these strengths, limitations of the study imply directions for future research. First, the sample included only two-parent families. The majority of Mexican-origin families in the United States include two parents (65%; U.S. Census Bureau, 2014), but our findings cannot be generalized to other family structures. For example, in single-mother families, mothers’ familism values may play a more consistent role in youths’ family time. Second, we focused only on mothers’ and fathers’ familism values. As the developmental niche framework suggests, the values of multiple socializers and caregivers can influence youths’ social and physical settings (Super & Harkness, 1986). In Latino families, extended family members such as grandmothers and grandfathers may serve as socializers, especially in the multiple-generation households that are common among the Latino population (Cohen & Casper, 2002). Relatedly, given the complexity of our analyses and research questions, we examined the overarching construct of familism rather than its components (e.g., obligations, support, referent) and combined time family spent together rather than time spent in different types of family activities (e.g., leisure activities vs. household tasks). Future studies should consider how components of familism values may differentially relate to aspects of family time (e.g., family obligation values may relate to family chores, whereas family support values may relate to family conversations and caregiving). Third, the current study focused on family time as a mediator of the benefits of familism values for youths’ psychosocial functioning, and there are other familial and extrafamilial processes yet to be explored. For example, familism values may play a role in parents’ relationship quality, which in turn supports positive youth development. Familism values may have implications for youths’ relationships outside of the family, including friendship intimacy and social competencies (Thayer, Updegraff, & Delgado, 2008). Finally, the current study examined multiple family members and processes simultaneously and over time in an effort to capture the complexity of family systems dynamics—an approach that meant specifying and testing a large number of paths. It will be useful for future work to examine the mechanisms of the current study with larger samples of male and female youth, in order to examine the extent to which findings generalize to other samples.

In conclusion, the current study is among the first to address the question of how fathers’ and mothers’ familism values have implications for Mexican-origin young adults’ adjustment. Our findings identify family time as a key linking mechanism and point to the importance of examining both mothers’ and fathers’ familism values, as well as the emotional tone of the parent–youth relationship in transmitting the benefits of family time to young adults’ mental health. More generally, the findings contribute to scholarship on the developmental niches of adolescence and young adulthood, including the role of cultural values and everyday experiences as key family processes that unfold across development in Mexican-origin families.

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to the families and youth who participated in this project, and to the following schools and districts that collaborated: Osborn, Mesa, and Gilbert school districts; Willis Junior High School; Supai and Ingleside middle schools; St. Catherine of Siena; St. Gregory; St. Francis Xavier; St. Mary-Basha; and St. John Bosco. We thank Ann Crouter, Mark Roosa, Nancy Gonzales, Roger Millsap, Jennifer Kennedy, Leticia Gelhard, Sarah Killoren, Melissa Delgado, Emily Cansler, Shawna Thayer, Devon Hageman, Ji-Yeon Kim, Lilly Shanahan, Chum Bud Lam, Megan Baril, Anna Solmeyer, and Shawn Whiteman for their assistance in conducting this study. We thank Rebecca White for contributing to intellectual discussions of values within Mexican-origin families. Funding was provided by NICHD Grants R01-HD39666 (Updegraff, PI) and R01-HD32336 (Ann C. Crouter & Susan M. McHale, co-PIs) and the Cowden Fund to the T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics at Arizona State University.

Contributor Information

Katharine H. Zeiders, Department of Human Development and Family Science, University of Missouri, 314 Gentry Hall, Columbia, MO 65211 (zeidersk@missouri.edu).

Kimberly A. Updegraff, T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics, Arizona State University, 951 S. Cady Mall, Tempe, AZ 85287.

Adriana J. Umaña-Taylor, T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics, Arizona State University, 951 S. Cady Mall, Tempe, AZ 85287.

Susan M. McHale, Department of Human Development and Family Studies, Pennsylvania State University, 119 Health and Human Development Bldg., University Park, PA 16802.

Jenny Padilla, Department of Human Development and Family Studies, Pennsylvania State University, 119 Health and Human Development Bldg., University Park, PA 16802..

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