Examining mechanisms linking economic insecurity to interparental conflict among couples with low income

• Published date: 01 July 2023
• Author: Joyce Y. Lee,Shawna J. Lee,Brenda L. Volling,Andrew C. Grogan‐Kaylor
• Date: 01 July 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12698

RESEARCH

Examining mechanisms linking economic insecurity to

interparental conflict among couples with low income

Joyce Y. Lee

1

|Shawna J. Lee

2

|Brenda L. Volling

3

|

Andrew C. Grogan-Kaylor

2

1

College of Social Work, The Ohio State

University, Columbus, Ohio

2

School of Social Work, University

of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan

3

Department of Psychology, University

of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan

Correspondence

Joyce Y. Lee, College of Social Work, The

Ohio State College of Social Work, 1947

North College Road, Columbus, OH 43210,

USA.

Email: lee.10148@osu.edu

Funding information

Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of

Child Health and Human Development,

Grant/Award Number: R15HD091763-01; U.

S. Children’s Bureau, Grant/Award Number:

90PR0009-01-00

Abstract

Objective: The current study used the family stress model

to test the mechanisms by which economic insecurity con-

tributes to mothers’and fathers’mental health and cou-

ples’relationship functioning.

Background: Although low household income has been a

focus of poverty research, material hardship—defined as

everyday challenges related to making ends meet including

difficulties paying for housing, utilities, food, or medical

care—is common among American families.

Methods: Participants were from the Building Strong

Families project. Couples were racially diverse (43.52%

Black; 28.88% Latinx; 17.29% White; 10.31% Other) and

living with low income (N=2794). Economic insecurity

included income poverty and material hardship. Bayesian

mediation analysis was employed, taking advantage of the

prior evidence base of the family stress model.

Results: Material hardship, but not income poverty,

predicted higher levels of both maternal and paternal

depressive symptoms. Only paternal depressive symptoms

were linked with higher levels of destructive interparental

conflict (i.e., moderate verbal aggression couples use that

could be harmful to the partner relationship). Mediation

analysis confirmed that material hardship operated pri-

marily through paternal depressive symptoms in its associ-

ation with destructive interparental conflict.

Joyce Y. Lee was supported by a fellowship from the Administration for Children and Families (Children’s Bureau) under grant no.

90PR0009-01-00 during the writing of this manuscript. Shawna J. Lee and Brenda L. Volling were supported by a grant from the Eunice

Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R15HD091763-01).This study was approved as

secondary data analysis by the Institutional Review Board at the University of Michigan. Project Name: Secondary Analysis of Building

Strong Families Data (HUM00145063).

Received: 2 March 2021Revised: 20 January 2022Accepted: 5 March 2022

DOI: 10.1111/fare.12698

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and

reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

© 2022 The Authors. Family Relations published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of National Council on Family Relations.

1158 Family Relations. 2023;72:1158–1185.

wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/fare

Conclusion: The economic stress of meeting the daily mate-

rial needs of the family sets the stage for parental mental

health problems that carry over to destructive inter-

parental conflict, especially through paternal depressive

symptoms.

Implications: Family-strengthening programs may want to

consider interventions to address material hardship

(e.g., comprehensive needs assessments, connections to

community-based resources, parents’employment train-

ing) as part of their efforts to address parental mental

health and couples’destructive conflict behaviors.

KEYWORDS

Bayesian statistics, Building Strong Families project, destructive

interparental conflict, family stress model, material hardship, parental

depressive symptoms

In the United States, it is estimated that 6.5 million families live in poverty (U.S. Census

Bureau, 2020). In 2020, federal poverty guidelines established the poverty threshold of $26,200

for a family of four (e.g., two parents and two children; U.S. Department of Health and Human

Services, 2020). In families with low income, approximately 44% of the children (the largest

proportion of children under age 18years) were young children below the ages of 3years

(Koball & Jiang, 2018). The deleterious effects of poverty on families are well documented and

include hardships with purchasing everyday goods, parents’deteriorating mental health, and

destructive interparental conflict (i.e., moderate verbal aggression couples use that could be

harmful to the partner relationship)—all of which contribute to poor outcomes for children’s

development (Brooks-Gunn & Duncan, 1997; Evans, 2004). Research suggests that poverty

operates through specific family processes (Conger et al., 1994; McLoyd, 1990; Parke

et al., 2004). For example, adverse economic conditions have shown to be linked with more

economic pressure felt by parents, which in turn leads to decreased parental mental health that

contributes to poor relationship quality between parents (Conger et al., 1994).

Although low household income has been a focus of poverty research, material hardship is

common among American families. Most families with low income (70%) report experiencing

material hardship defined as difficulties paying for housing, utilities, or medical care in the past

year (Karpman et al., 2018a). Other terms such as economic hardship,economic pressure, and

economic cutbacks have similar definitions as material hardship. That said, there is currently a

lack of consensus surrounding the definition and measures used for material hardship (Heflin

et al., 2009). To be consistent with prior literature on material hardship (e.g., Gershoff

et al., 2007; Ouellette et al., 2004; Shelleby, 2018), we use the term material hardship throughout

the current study. Building on the family stress model (FSM; Conger et al., 1994), the current

study examined links between economic insecurity (operationalized as income poverty and

material hardship), parental depressive symptoms, and destructive interparental conflict in a

large and racially diverse sample of mothers and fathers with low income.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK: THE FAMILY STRESS MODEL

The FSM was developed to understand the impact on families of economic insecurity caused by

the Great Farm Crisis in the 1980s. The FSM posits that negative economic conditions, such as

low family income, can lead to higher levels of economic pressure mothers and fathers

ECONOMIC INSECURITY AND INTERPARENTAL CONFLICT1159