Parental Job Loss and Young Children’s Socioemotional Development during COVID-19

• In Event: Family Law, Family Structure, and Health and Well-Being

Abstract

Objective

This study examined how parental job loss during COVID-19 affected preschool-age children’s socioemotional development, with a specific focus on the differential effects of fathers’ and mothers’ job loss.

Background

The COVID-19 pandemic has put many families at risk of economic insecurity, but its impact on young children’s development has not been extensively explored.

Method

Using panel data drawn from New York City families with young children (565 families observed over three periods of pre-COVID in 2019, early-COVID in 2020, and mid-COVID from 2021 to 2022; Respondent parents: Mage=36, 39% Latino, 30% White, 18% Black, 6% Asian, 7% other race and ethnicity, 89% female; Respondents’ children: Mage=5, 48% female), this study examined whether a mother's job loss and a father's job loss during the pandemic each affected children’s socioemotional development concurrently and one year later.

Results

The study found that a father's job loss predicted higher socioemotional problems among children. In contrast, it did not find such associations with a mother's job loss. The mechanism analyses found that a father’s job loss predicted lower family income and less parent-child activity. Several explanatory factors (i.e. families’ economic hardship, household chaos, parental psychological distress, and parent-child interaction) partially mediated the link between a father’s job loss and children’s socioemotional development.

Conclusion

Our findings suggest that the effects of parental job loss on the family system interact with parents’ gender, as evidenced by detrimental effects on children’s early socioemotional development when a father, but not a mother, loses their job.

Author

• Eunho Cha, University of California, Irvine
  Presenting Author