2018年初手機遊戲「旅行青蛙」引起廣大的討論熱潮,玩家既期待青蛙離家又盼望青蛙歸來,但青蛙的感受是如何,卻鮮少有人關注。社會學者將離家視為成人轉銜的重要事件之一,過往的研究已指出許多影響離家的因素以及離家的後果(如影響親子關係或其他成人指標)。但是,離家所造成的其他後果(如心理健康)卻尚未受學界所重視。有鑒於此,本文試圖探索轉大人時期離家與否對心理健康的影響。同時,離家也反映與家人關係的鬆動,本文會檢驗早期親子關係是否影響離家對心理健康的效果。再者,考量到男、女心理健康的變化軌跡可能有所不同,本文也進一步釐清親子關係的調節效果是否具有性別差異。本文將結合生命歷程與壓力過程觀點,運用台灣青少年成長歷程研究資料庫進行貫時性資料分析。同時,本文將採用處理機率倒數加權法克服離家的選擇性效果與樣本流失的問題。結果發現在轉大人時期離家可能並不影響心理健康,雖然進一步的異質性檢驗指出疏離型男性比起女性在早期離家(18、19歲)會降低心理健康,但在其他時間點,離家效果並沒有隨著親子關係與性別而有不同。大抵而言,本文認為在轉大人時期離家對心理健康並沒有作用,且不具有親子關係、性別異質性。
Leaving parental home is a key life event in emerging adulthood. A rich body of literature has identified a number of factors leading to leaving parental home. Many studies have also revealed how the youth’s leaving home affects their later parent-child relationships and other following life transitions. However, it is still unknown whether leaving parental home entails enduring effects on the subjective health status of young Taiwanese adults. In addition, to date, no studies have examined whether the link between leaving home and mental health may be conditional on different types of parent-child relationship and gender groups. Building on the life course perspective and stress process perspective and using panel data from the Taiwan Youth Project (TYP), this study examines the causal effect of leaving parental home on the mental health of young Taiwanese adults. Methodologically, this research tests the heterogeneity in types of parent-child relationship and gender groups. Moreover, to deal with issues of selection bias and sample attrition, and to capture the effect of dynamic treatment, this thesis applies inverse probability treatment weighting. The results show that the average treatment effect (ATE) of leaving home in emerging adulthood on mental health at later time point is zero. Further heterogeneous analyses show that the effect of leaving home
on depression does not substantially vary between different types of parent-child relationship or genders. The most notable result is that young men who reported low levels of parental support and low rates of conflict with their parents and left home at ages 18-19 has lower levels of mental health compared to those young men who stayed at home at same ages. However, leaving parental home does not yield a significant effect on mental health for young Taiwanese women.