To study the relationship between parental investment and children's life satisfaction in urban families with different income. 1416 children in Grade 4-8 from medium-developed regions were investigated. The sample came from the database of the National Chilrens'Study of China(NCSC). The famlies were divided into 3 groups according to income level(i.e., high, medium and low income group). The results showed that ①High-income families had the highest education-al payout, while low-income families had the least investment on children's specialty training; Childeren from the low-in-come family had the least parental company and parental help; ②Parental investment had significantly predictive effect on childrens's life satisfaction in each family group. Interestingly, in high-income family, family educational payout had a neg-ative effect on children's life satisfaction.

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