Latina mothers navigating COVID‐19: Within‐ and between‐family stress processes over time

• Published date: 01 February 2023
• Author: Chase J. Boyer,Elisa Ugarte,Andrea C. Buhler‐Wassmann,Leah C. Hibel
• Date: 01 February 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12748

RESEARCH

Latina mothers navigating COVID-19: Within- and

between-family stress processes over time

Chase J. Boyer | Elisa Ugarte | Andrea C. Buhler-Wassmann |

Leah C. Hibel

Department of Human Ecology, University of

California–Davis, Davis, CA

Correspondence Leach C. Hibel, One Shields

Ave, University of California–Davis, Davis,

CA 95616, USA.

Email: lchibel@ucdavis.edu

Funding information

The fourth author was supported by NICHD

R01HD071933. This project was in part

supported by a University of California–Davis

COVID-19 Research Accelerator Funding

Track (CRAFT) grant.

Abstract

Objective: This study aimed to understand how periodic shifts

in financial cutbacks and fears of contracting COVID-19 con-

tributed to children’s externalizing behaviors due to increases

in maternal stress among low-income Latina mothers during

the first 10 months of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic caused widespread

health, economic, and psychological consequences for

families and children. The Latino community is particu-

larly vulnerable to the economic and health risks of this

pandemic as a consequence of systemic oppression. The

family stress model suggests that these family stressors will

have psychological repercussions to parents, and down-

stream behavioral consequences to children.

Method: We examined both the within- and between-person

impacts of worry surrounding contracting the virus and the

economic consequences of the pandemic on maternal stress

and child externalizing behaviors. Participants were

73 Latina mothers who completed assessments an average

eight times across the first 10 months of the COVID-19

pandemic. At each assessment time, the mother was asked

about worries surrounding contracting the virus, economic

cutbacks the family was making, her perceived stress, and

her child’s externalizing behaviors during a brief phone call.

Results: Between-families, higher economic cutbacks indi-

rectly increased child externalizing behaviors through

maternal stress. The within-family model revealed that at

assessments when mothers expressed greater worry about

contracting the COVID-19 virus, they also reported

greater stress. Further, at the within-person level, a

mother’s greater experience of stress was associated with

Author note The authors gratefully acknowledge Yesi Avelar, Jasmine Ortiz, Anabelle Garza Mesa, Adriana Gutierrez, and the

participants, without whom this project would not have been possible. The authors have no conflicts to disclose.

Received: 2 February 2022 Accepted: 30 May 2022

DOI: 10.1111/fare.12748

© 2022 National Council on Family Relations.

Family Relations. 2023;72:23–39. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/fare 23

greater reports of child externalizing behaviors, though the

indirect association between COVID-19 contract worry

and child externalizing behaviors through maternal stress

was not significant.

Conclusions: Across the first 10 months of the COVID-19

pandemic, the children in Latino families participating in

this research exhibited more externalizing behaviors

among families that engaged in more financial cutbacks as

a function maternal stress. However, periodic spikes in

Latina mothers’fears of contracting COVID-19 contrib-

uted to periodic spikes in stress, which predicted periodic

spikes in child externalizing behaviors.

Implications: Greater effort toward social policy that pro-

vides economic support for vulnerable families before

periods of increased societal stress and greater protections

for workers with limited sick leave and schedule flexibility

will help promote resilience to future crises among low-

income Latino families.

The COVID-19 pandemic has contributed to high levels of stress from social isolation, fear of

infection, and economic hardship, especially for lower income and minoritized families (Brown

et al., 2020). Latinx families in particular have faced the brunt of these hardships with higher

rates of unemployment, and morbidity and mortality caused by COVID-19, compared to non-

Latinx White individuals (Tai et al., 2021). The family stress model (FSM) describes how

stressors such as these have the potential to initiate a cascade of problems for family well-being

(Conger et al., 1994). Specifically, stress jeopardizes parents’psychological functioning, under-

mining parent–child relationship quality and increasing punitive and controlling parenting.

Family stress in early childhood due to economic hardship can contribute to the emergence of

externalizing behaviors, such as acting out or arguing. Over time, greater incidence of external-

izing behaviors can lead to a range of socioemotional issues including delinquency, substance

use, and co-occurring internalizing disorders with the possibility of continuing across genera-

tions (Conger et al., 2010; Martin et al., 2010; Scaramella et al., 2008; Shi et al., 2020).

This pandemic has been a constantly changing crisis and has caused massive fluctuations in

family life, underlining the importance of examining the unique impact of pandemic induced

instability on mothers and children. Thus, this study was designed to capture family stress pro-

cess in the context of COVID-19 by repeatedly assessing family life across the first 10 months

of the pandemic. Using repeated measures across 2020, the current study tests a multilevel

(between- and within-family), intensive longitudinal model of family stress during the pandemic

in a sample of low-income Latino families. Specifically, we examine (a) the impact of mothers’

economic cutbacks and worries about contracting the virus on children’s externalizing behav-

iors through increased maternal stress and (b) how these processes unfolded both across and

within families during the first 10 months of the pandemic.

Latino families and the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic

Latino families have had disproportionate economic impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Institutional barriers and systemic discrimination increase Latino families’risk of economic

hardship (Ruiz & Steffen, 2011). The April 2020 jobs report partially highlighted these inequal-

ities at the outset of the pandemic, revealing the unemployment rate for Latinos to be 18.9%

24 FAMILY RELATIONS