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The perception of the value of children (VOC) can elucidate why individuals consider it beneficial to have children by uncovering their subjective intentions and experiences regarding their fertility decisions. Using VOC perceptions to understand fertility change in the modernization process, this qualitative study explores how parents' VOC change meshes with China's socioeconomic and cultural contexts. This article examines intergenerational VOC evolution under the support and constraints of socioeconomic environments and cultural norms. Grandparents, embedded in the rural economy and traditional culture, exhibit economic/utilitarian and social/normative VOC. Young parents, living, and having grown up in urban economic and modernized cultural contexts, recognize emotional/psychological VOC for fertility intention. Migrant parents living in urban economies but bound by traditional culture believe that social/normative VOC is important for fertility intention. The results advance understanding of the integration of individuals' psychological intentions with the socioeconomic-cultural contexts that influence their fertility and VOC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As one of the foundations of existential positive psychology, self-transcendence can bring positive intrapersonal and interpersonal outcomes, especially in the COVID-19 era in which people are suffering huge mental stress. Based on Schwartz's theory of human basic values, the current study combines variable-centered and person-centered approaches to examine the relationships between adolescents' values and mental health across two regions in China. The results generally showed that (1) both self-enhancement and conservation values were positively correlated with depression and loneliness, while both self-transcendence and openness to change values negatively correlated with depression and loneliness. The results also showed that (2) there were four value clusters (i.e., self-focus, other-focus, anxiety-free, undifferentiated), and, compared to adolescents in the self-focus and undifferentiated values cluster, all adolescents in the anxiety-free values cluster reported lower depression and loneliness, while all adolescents in the other-focus values cluster reported higher depression and loneliness. The differences between the two regional groups only emerged in depression. Specifically, adolescents in Shanghai have higher levels of depression than adolescents in Qingdao. This study provides some evidence for the new science of self-transcendence among adolescents and also sheds light on how we may improve the level of mental health during the COVID-19 era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]