Parents’ working conditions and adolescent depression in China: A causal mediation analysis using the parametric G-Formula

Purpose Adolescent depression is a pressing public health concern in China, with social determinants playing a key role. Little is known about the intergenerational transmission mechanisms of parents’ occupational characteristics on adolescent offspring depression, with a particular scarcity of causal inference evidence. Methods We extracted data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) from 2014 to 2022. We constructed a parametric G-formula model to estimate the causal effects of multidimensional characteristics of a parent’s occupation on the risk of depression for their offspring, and to explore the underlying mediating pathways. Results Parents’ engagement in agricultural or self-employed occupations, excessively long working hours (> 84 per week), outdoor work environments, high job stress, and promotion-related pressures were significantly associated with an elevated risk of depression in offspring. Conversely, being employed, working in office or workshop settings, and higher income served as protective factors. Mediation analyses revealed that parental sleep duration mediated 13.33% of the protective effect of employment (total effect: β = -0.30). For work stress, two pathways were identified: parental depression mediated 56.72% (β = 0.67), and life satisfaction mediated 60.00% (β = 0.05) of the total effect. Conclusion The study highlights the need for a policy shift from purely economic support toward integrated public health and occupational measures that safeguard parental psychological well-being, thereby directly investing in adolescents’ mental health resilience.