Latent Profiles of Couples’ Psychological and Parenting Characteristics in Infancy and Differences in Infants’ Socio-emotional Development and Behavior Problems

Abstract

This study examined latent profiles of couples' psychological and parenting characteristics during infancy and tested how these profiles relate to infants' behavior problems and social development. Using the second wave (2023; child age 1) of the Korean ECEC Panel Study, nine indicators—mothers' and fathers' depression, parenting stress, parenting efficacy, and marital conflict, plus the primary caregiver's social support—were analyzed for 1,482 couples with complete data. Latent profile analysis identified three profiles: a low-risk/high-functioning type (29.9%), an average type (50.7%), and a high-risk/concordant type (19.4%). Across all profiles, mothers' and fathers' risk levels moved in the same direction, indicating couple-level concordance rather than one-partner risk. Profiles differed significantly in infants' internalizing and externalizing problems (CBCL) and social development (K-DST): infants in the high-risk/concordant type showed more behavior problems and lower social development. The differences were not strictly ordinal: the low-risk type's relative advantage was salient for behavior problems, whereas the high-risk type's relative disadvantage was salient for social development. This type also reported the lowest household income and subjective socioeconomic status, indicating that psychological-parenting risk co-occurs with relative socioeconomic vulnerability. The findings suggest that parent support in infancy should target the couple as a unit and that high-risk couples should be identified early for integrated parent counseling, couple-focused intervention, and welfare support.