Risk, Resilience, and Chinese Youth’s Psychosocial Adjustment: The Role of Social Services

Abstract Few empirical studies have examined the impact of the universal social services provided to ordinary youth on their resilience and psychosocial adjustment, especially youth from developing countries like China. Based on a sample of 857 high school students between the ages of 13–19 from Beijing, this article examines the pattern of social services provided to Chinese youth and the impact of these services on their resilience and positive or negative psychosocial adjustment (depression, delinquency, prosocial behavior). The results reveal that: (a) Chinese youth generally make very limited use of services but they report moderate satisfaction; (b) both frequency and satisfaction of service use significantly predicts resilience, and resilience significantly predicts lower depression and higher prosocial behavior; (c) resilience fully mediates the relationships between social service frequency/satisfaction and depression/prosocial behavior. The findings give support to the public health model of social services and reveal that building resilience is one mechanism that universal service contributes to youths’ psychosocial adjustment. Future research may further investigate the relationships between social services, resilience and psychosocial adjustment in other geographical areas and time periods of China, and comparative studies between China and other countries may also be useful.