Family economic hardship and depressive symptomatology in adolescents

The family stress model postulates that economic hardship affects child adjustment through parental mental health and parenting. A structural equation model was developed to test this model using maternal depressive symptoms and nurturance as mediators of the relationship between economic hardship and child depression. Participants included African American and Caucasian adolescents (n=572, mean age=13.2) and their mothers who participated in Wave 2 of the Birmingham (AL) Youth Violence Study. Economic hardship and maternal nurturance were represented by latent factors, while maternal depression and child depression were measured directly. The economic hardship latent factor was indicated by five mother-reported variables: unmet needs, difficulty making ends meet, negative financial events and cutbacks in past year, and household income. The nurturance latent factor was derived from child and parent reports of parental nurturance. Mothers and children reported on their own depressive symptoms. In the model, economic hardship predicted maternal depression and nurturance. In turn, higher maternal depression and lower nurturance were associated with higher child depression. The link between maternal depression and nurturance was tested but did not reach statistical significance. The model also adjusted for child gender. Overall, the model fit the data well (RSMEA=.045). Further analyses explored race/ethnic differences using multi-group SEM. No paths were significantly different by race/ethnicity; therefore, the overall model was accepted as the final model. The results suggest that financial stress influences adolescent depressive symptoms indirectly through increasing mothers' depressive symptoms and decreasing parental nurturance. These findings provide strong support for the family stress model.