Poverty, Material Hardship, and Children's Outcomes: A Nuanced Understanding of Material Hardship in Childhood.

There are four distinct, related types of material hardship-basic expense hardship, food insecurity, housing hardship, and medical hardship. Extant research has not sufficiently accounted for the complex relationships between these different types of material hardship. Using 1997 and 2002 data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics Child Development Study on a national sample of 3- to 17-year-old children (N = 3563), this study describes the prevalence of each type of material hardship, their relative correlations, and their associations with children's behavior problems, and reading and math scores. Material hardship is more prevalent than income poverty and the four types of material hardship were only moderately correlated with each other. Only basic expense hardship, food security, and one type of medical hardship were associated with increased behavior problems. Only housing hardship was associated with lower math and reading scores. These findings highlight the need to more carefully investigate the distinctions between material hardship types in childhood and the importance of a diversified set of policy responses to protect children from the possible effects of distinct, but interrelated experiences of material hardship.

Growing up unequal: Objective and subjective economic disparities and authoritarian parenting.

BACKGROUND: Although there is evidence of economic disparities in parents' financial and time investments in children, little existing empirical work has considered the disparities in authoritarian parenting, a risk for child maltreatment. Similarly, existing research has largely focused on the role of objective markers of socioeconomic status (SES), although perceived subjective social status (SSS) may be equally powerful in shaping disparities in parenting behaviors. DATA: This article draws on 30 years of General Social Survey data to examine the association between objective socioeconomic status and subjective social status and parents' endorsement of authoritarian parenting practices. METHODS: We model the association between parents' SES and SSS and approval of authoritarian parenting practices estimated with odds ratios from logistic regressions and examine parental race as a potential moderator. RESULTS: We find that SES and SSS are both associated with increased odds of endorsing authoritarian parenting, that SSS-based disparities are independent of SES, and that white parents' parenting may be more influenced by both SES and SSS than Black parents' parenting. CONCLUSIONS: This work provides evidence that SES not only drives gaps in parental investments in children, but also gaps in their endorsement of authoritarian parenting. This is important because authoritarian parenting is not only directly associated with adverse outcomes for children, but is also associated with an increased risk for child maltreatment. It also expands the existing literature by showing that subjective measures of social status are important and distinct from objective measures of SES, and that these associations vary by race.

Associations Between Perceived Material Deprivation, Parents' Discipline Practices, and Children's Behavior Problems: An International Perspective.

This study investigated the association between perceived material deprivation, children's behavior problems, and parents' disciplinary practices. The sample included 1,418 8- to 12-year-old children and their parents in China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States. Multilevel mixed- and fixed-effects regression models found that, even when income remained stable, perceived material deprivation was associated with children's externalizing behavior problems and parents' psychological aggression. Parents' disciplinary practices mediated a small share of the association between perceived material deprivation and children's behavior problems. There were no differences in these associations between mothers and fathers or between high- and low- and middle-income countries. These results suggest that material deprivation likely influences children's outcomes at any income level.

Many Kinds of Poverty: Three Dimensions of Economic Hardship, Their Combinations, and Children's Behavior Problems.

Income poverty, material deprivation, and subjective financial stress are three distinct dimensions of economic hardship. The majority of the theoretical and empirical literature on the effects of economic hardship on children has treated material deprivation and subjective financial stress as only mediators of the effects of income poverty, not considering the independent effects of each dimension or the effects of their combinations. Using nationally representative, longitudinal data from the Millennium Cohort Study on more than 18,000 families in the United Kingdom, we propose seven distinct experiences of economic hardship, based on the possible combinations of income poverty, material deprivation, and subjective financial stress. We use mixed- and fixed-effects linear regression models to identify whether these different economic hardship combinations are differentially associated with children's behavior problems between ages 3 and 7. We find that all economic hardship combinations, including those without income poverty, are associated with higher levels of children's behavior problems. The combination of material deprivation and subjective financial stress and the combination of all three dimensions of economic hardship are associated with the highest levels of behavior problems. Based on these findings, we argue that income poverty is an important but insufficient measure of economic hardship for children and that theory and research on the effects of economic hardship on children should consider the multidimensional nature of economic stressors for families.

Family planning and resilience: associations found in a Population, Health, and Environment (PHE) project in Western Tanzania.

Using 2016 household survey data from Tanzania, we define and measure resilience within the context of Population, Health, and Environment programming and quantify the link between resilience and family planning. We created a multicomponent model using confirmatory factor analysis in a structural equation modeling context. Factor loadings for eight defined latent factors of resilience were statistically significant (p < 0.001). We created a factor called "FP-MCH" reflecting awareness, attitudes, and access to family planning (FP) and health care services and use of maternal and child health care (MCH) facilities. Analysis, with controls, shows that a 1 standard deviation (SD) increase in FP/MCH was associated with a 0.68 SD increase in resilience (p < 0.01), suggesting that the association between FP/MCH and resilience is robust across a range of factors. Analyses showed that the association between FP/MCH is broadly related to the construct of resilience and not through any single component. This study supports the importance of including FP/MCH as part of integrated projects to enhance resilience.

Local Job Losses and Child Maltreatment: The Importance of Community Context.

A growing body of literature suggests that economic downturns predict an increase in child maltreatment. However, to inform policies and practices to prevent and intervene in child maltreatment, it is necessary to identify how, when, and under what conditions community-level economic conditions affect child maltreatment. In this study, we use North Carolina administrative data from 2006 to 2011 on child maltreatment reports and job losses to distinguish effects on maltreatment frequency from effects on severity, identify the timing of these effects, and test whether community characteristics moderate these effects. To isolate effects of unanticipated job losses and to control for potential confounding factors, we use a fixed effects regression approach. We find that, though job losses did not affect the frequency of reports, job losses increased the share of reports that were relatively severe. This effect endured for 9 months following job losses and was only evident in economically disadvantaged communities.