High family SES and youth adjustment: The case of Chinese youth who were adopted from orphanages into American families

•Adopted Chinese youth scored more favorably on BASC-3 than non-adopted Chinese youth.•Adopted Chinese youth scored more favorably on BASC-3 than non-adopted US youth.•High adoptive family SES benefited adopted youth adjustment.•Testing measurement invariance is important for cross-cultural comparis...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Children and youth services review 2020-03, Vol.110, p.104784, Article 104784
Main Authors: Tan, Tony Xing, Yi, Zhiyao, Camras, Linda A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adjustment
Adopted youth
Adoption
American youth
BASC
Behavior problems
Chinese youth
Compensating effect
Families & family life
Institutionalization
Orphanages
Peers
Prosocial behavior
SES
Socioeconomic status
Youth
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Summary:•Adopted Chinese youth scored more favorably on BASC-3 than non-adopted Chinese youth.•Adopted Chinese youth scored more favorably on BASC-3 than non-adopted US youth.•High adoptive family SES benefited adopted youth adjustment.•Testing measurement invariance is important for cross-cultural comparison. In this paper, we examined if high SES families had an effect on youth’s adjustment by comparing 226 internationally adopted female Chinese youth who experienced pre-adoption institutionalization with 1059 non-adopted Chinese peers living in China, as well as 209 non-adopted American peers. On average, the adopted youth’s families had a higher SES status than the two comparison groups. Survey data on behavioral problems and prosocial adjustment were collected with the third edition of the Behavioral Assessment for Children (BASC-3). We found the adopted Chinese youth outperformed their Chinese counterparts in all comparisons and their US counterparts in most comparisons. These results offer some evidence that a high family SES may compensate for the adoption-related risks such as earlier institutionalization. Possible mechanisms underlying the benefit of high SES were discussed.
ISSN:0190-7409
1873-7765
DOI:10.1016/j.childyouth.2020.104784