Association between parents' country of birth and adolescent depressive symptoms: The early stages of multicultural society

Background: This study aims to determine whether significant associations exist between the parents' country of birth and adolescent depressive symptoms in the early stages of a multicultural society. Methods: We used data from the 2012-2016 Korea Youth Risk Behavior Web-based Survey, which included responses from 327,357 individuals. Participants were classified into groups according to their parent's country of birth. Logistic regression analysis was used to examine the significance of the associations. Results: Adolescents whose parents were born abroad are more likely to have depressive symptoms (odds ratio [OR] = 1.68; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.33-2.12) than adolescents whose parents were native Koreans. Respondents whose father was born in North Korea or Japan or Taiwan show greater odds of depressive symptoms than respondents whose parents were native Korean. Conclusion: Adolescents whose parents were born abroad are more likely to have depressive symptoms. Multicultural family support policies should be implemented in consideration of the characteristics of the parents' country of birth.