Expanding the Family Stress Model: The Consequences of Parental Arrest for Family Life

• In Event: 4170 - The Sociological Study of Stress: Applications, Elaborations, and Critiques

Abstract

In this article, we introduce an expanded form of family stress theory to investigate the relationship between parental arrest and family life. Specifically, we augment existing family stress models with concepts from the stress process paradigm, to forward a theoretical model based on three stages: (1) exposure to family stressors is differential, based on status positions within the social structure; (2) stressors can proliferate in two ways—first, from one individual to the family unit and second, from primary to secondary stressors, which together can have deleterious consequences for family life; and (3) family resiliency resources can buffer against these negative consequences. The findings, based on data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, document the differential social patterning of mothers’ and fathers’ arrest for families. Mothers’ recent arrest (but not fathers’ recent arrest) is a primary stressor to the family, with these associations most consequential for partnerships that were residential (rather than non-residential) prior to arrest. Mothers’ arrest engenders secondary stressors of impaired mental health and material hardship, and together these primary and secondary stressors result in an increased probability of relationship dissolution, decreased relationship quality, and decreased co-parenting. Resiliency resources—specifically, perceived social support—offset some of these deleterious consequences. Taken together, the expanded family stress model suggests that unequal exposure to stressors and differential consequences of stressors can increase family inequality.

Authors

• Kristin Turney, University of California-Irvine

• Naomi F. Sugie, University of California-Irvine