Family Processes Underlying Economic Insecurity, Father Involvement, and Child Outcomes in Families with Low Income

Abstract

The theme of the dissertation focuses on examining family processes underlying economic insecurity and young children’s outcomes in unmarried parents with low income. All three studies involved secondary analysis of the Building Strong Families (BSF) data, a large and racially diverse sample of unmarried parent families from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds. The dissertation focused on samples of residential father families.

The first dissertation study was exploratory in that it used a person-centered approach to discern the existence of latent parenting profiles of unmarried mothers and fathers of preschoolers based on the father-child activation relationship theory (Paquette, 2004). The study used a sample of 672 BSF families. Observations of mother–child and father–child interactions were included in latent profile analysis to reveal 3 distinct parenting profiles for both fathers and mothers (i.e., supportive, activation, and intrusive), with the activation profile showing a pattern of moderate intrusiveness combined with sensitivity, positive regard, and cognitive stimulation. Next, four family configurations were created. Children with supportive mothers and fathers had higher receptive language scores compared with those from other family groups, and had higher prosocial scores compared with children with activation mothers and activation fathers, but not other family groups (i.e., activation father/supportive mother or supportive father/activation mother). Results support activation relationship theory by noting a pattern of parenting behaviors used by fathers (and mothers) in which parents are moderately intrusive, challenging, or directive with their children, yet still sensitive and positive in their interactions.

The second dissertation study applied the Family Stress Model (FSM; Conger, Ge, Elder, Lorenz, & Simons, 1994) to test the mechanisms by which economic insecurity contributes to mothers’ and fathers’ mental health and couples’ relationship functioning. The study used a sample of 2,794 BSF families. Bayesian mediation analysis was employed, taking advantage of the prior evidence base of the family stress model. Material hardship worked above and beyond household income to directly predict couples’ destructive conflict for both mothers and fathers. Indirect effects of material hardship on couples’ destructive conflict through parental depressive symptoms was found for mothers only. Overall, the economic stress of meeting the daily material needs of the family sets the stage for parental mental health problems that carry over into destructive interparental conflict, especially through maternal depressive symptoms.

Building on the findings of the first and second dissertation studies, the third dissertation study also applied the FSM to examine the links between material hardship, and preschoolers’ prosocial behaviors and an examination of the coparenting alliance, and mother’s and father’s positive parenting as key mediators. The study used a sample of 1,375 BSF families. Structural equation modeling results showed that material hardship was associated with increased levels of father’s positive parenting only and that coparenting alliance was linked with increased levels of both mother’s and father’s positive parenting. Subsequently, both mother’s and father’s positive parenting was related to increased levels of preschoolers’ prosocial behaviors. The results suggest the potentially protective role a strong coparenting alliance plays amongst BSF mothers and fathers in the context of material hardship. That is, when unmarried mothers and fathers maintain a strong coparenting bond amidst economic challenges, they may be able to engage in positive parenting, such as being responsive to their children’s needs and thus promote their children’s prosocial development.