For low-income families, difficulty paying utility bills, rent, mortgage, or health care costs sets the stage for parental mental health issues, especially fathers, which then lead to conflict potentially violent relatives. These are the key findings of a study I led that was recently published in the journal Family Relations.
Previous research on poverty has been conducted primarily with mothers, with a predominant focus on low income, without considering the role of so-called “material hardship” and its impact on fathers. Family income refers to a specific dollar amount that parents contribute through paid work, such as an annual family income of US$27,750 for a family of four, while material hardship, or the “everyday struggle to end of the month,” refer to whether a family has faced challenges meeting basic needs like food, utilities, and health insurance.
parental mental health
My research team found that it was not low family income per se, but everyday struggles to make ends meet that was linked to poorer mental health in fathers, which then led to more negative conflict behaviors with mothers . Such conflict behaviors included blaming the partner for things that go wrong; belittle the feelings, opinions or wishes of the partner; or small arguments that turn into ugly fights with accusations and insults. Such verbal aggression can be damaging to the relationship and has been shown to be harmful to young children who see their parents engage in such behaviors.
To conduct this study, my team used data from the Building Strong Families project, a large, racially diverse sample of 2,794 mostly single, heterosexual couples caring for young children living on low income. Our goal was to examine how economic insecurity, defined as low family income and material hardship, was associated with mothers’ and fathers’ mental health conditions and relationship functioning.
One of the key findings was that the association between material difficulties, such as difficulty paying bills, rent, and health insurance, and destructive conflict behaviors operated primarily through the parents’ depressive symptoms and not those of the parents. Mother. Examples of depressive symptoms include feelings of sadness, trouble sleeping, trouble concentrating, not being interested in eating, and loneliness.
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why does it matter
These findings suggest that the negative effects of material difficulties on the dynamics of relationships within couples operate by damaging the mental health of fathers more than that of mothers. In light of traditional gender norms, fathers may feel more stressed than mothers when they are unable to fulfill the primary role of breadwinner in the family. In other words, when parents feel that they are not providing financially to alleviate everyday financial stressors in their families, that can lead to more mental health problems and more conflict between parents. Our study suggests the importance of focusing equal attention on parents and how family interventions could help alleviate the problems that lead to parental depressive symptoms and negative parental conflict.
Related to this, during the COVID-19 pandemic, parents, including low-income parents, experienced high levels of unemployment, economic insecurity, and mental health issues related to the pandemic. As such, addressing the mental health of parents seems uniquely critical and has the potential to support healthy family functioning during the ongoing pandemic.
What other research is being done?
I am beginning to explore how families can resist the negative effects of poverty by looking to positive relationships between parents as sources of strength. For example, in another study I led, I showed that when mothers and fathers focused on positive behaviors, such as being a good co-parenting team on behalf of their children, they were more likely to resist financial stressors related to family life. poverty and engaging in warm and responsive parenting that benefited the social development of their young children.
Joyce Y. Lee, Assistant Professor of Social Work, The Ohio State University first published this article in The conversation.
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