The specific mediating paths between economic hardship and the quality of parenting

Abstract

Finland, one of the welfare states of northern Europe, faced an exceptionally deep economic recession at the beginning of the 1990s. Based on the Family Stress Model (Conger & Elder, 1994) we studied specific mediating paths between economic hardship and the different domains of parenting in 527 mother-father-child triads. The results show that economic hardship created economic pressures for both parents. For fathers, both the general and specific pressures were further associated with symptoms of anxiety and social dysfunction, whereas for mothers, only the specific economic pressures were negatively reflected in mental health by increasing depressing mood and anxiety symptoms. Paternal anxiety was then associated with hostile marital interaction, perceived by the wife, and maternal anxiety with low marital support, perceived by the husband. The negative marital interaction finally was associated with poor parenting, especially among the fathers. Fathers’ anxiety was also directly related to their punitive and noninvolved fathering, and social dysfunction to noninvolved fathering. Depressive symptoms in mothers were negatively reflected in authoritative mothering. Finally, the results revealed that supportive and nonhostile marital interaction was able to moderate the negative impact of economic hardship on parenting. The findings suggest that mothers and fathers fulfil gendered roles in dealing with the family economy and relationships.