Previous research has shown that adverse childhood experiences, such as harsh parenting or corporal punishment, can have long-lasting effects on individuals’ psychological well-being. Still, little is known about how these effects interact with cultural and structural factors in non-Western contexts. Drawing on data from an original 2020 survey of 1087 married women in Beijing, linear regression analysis reveals that women who experienced childhood harsh parenting report significantly lower levels of self-esteem than those who did not. Surprisingly, this negative association is amplified at higher levels of educational attainment. Further analysis also shows that the negative association between childhood harsh parenting and self-esteem is stronger among women who reported having greater autonomy in mate choice for marriage than among those with limited autonomy. The findings suggest that while educational attainment and autonomy in mate choice for marriage are typically associated with empowerment, they may also intensify reflexivity, temporal comparisons, and heightened role expectations. These dynamics can reactivate early experiences of harsh parenting, exacerbating the influence of unresolved childhood trauma on adult self-esteem.
Zhao et al. (Tue,) studied this question.