Trajectories of parental neglect in multicultural families: A social determinants of health approach to heterogeneous developmental pathways from childhood to adolescence.

BACKGROUND

Parental neglect is the most prevalent form of child maltreatment in South Korea, and children in multicultural families are disproportionately exposed. Social determinants of health offer a useful lens for understanding heterogeneous neglect pathways, yet longitudinal evidence is limited.

OBJECTIVE

To identify distinct longitudinal trajectories of child-reported parental neglect in Korean multicultural families and to examine how baseline social determinants differentiate class membership.

PARTICIPANTS AND

SETTING

Data came from a nationally representative panel of 2186 fourth-grade children (Wave 1, 2019) in foreign-parent families in South Korea, followed annually through Wave 5 (eighth grade, 2023).

METHODS

Latent class growth analysis identified neglect trajectory classes. The BCH procedure tested baseline class differences, and the three-step procedure estimated multinomial logistic regressions predicting class membership.

RESULTS

A four-class solution best fit the data: low-stable (50.5%), moderate-increasing (38.2%), high-decreasing (8.5%), and high-stable (2.9%). Socioeconomic indicators did not distinguish classes after adjustment. Higher parenting efficacy and parental self-esteem predicted membership in the low-stable class, whereas child discrimination experience predicted persistently elevated or worsening trajectories. Parental self-esteem sharply distinguished the high-stable from the low-stable class (OR = 0.14).

CONCLUSIONS

Neglect in multicultural families follows heterogeneous developmental pathways shaped less by household economic position than by relational and cultural social determinants-particularly children's exposure to discrimination and parents' psychological resources. Prevention combining anti-discrimination action with parenting support is likely to produce larger gains than income-targeted programs alone.