Poster #36 - Can Diminishing Social Mobility Already be Found in Childhood?

• In Event: Poster Session 10

Abstract

The current study focuses on how parents’ mental health impacts the social mobility of their offspring during childhood. Previous investigations have suggested that childhood socioeconomic status is the result of parents’ educational attainment, occupation, and income (e.g., National Assessment of Education Progress, 2012). Yet, this captures socioeconomic status (SES) without considering how parents allocate intellectual and monetary resources. We instead hypothesized that parents' resource allocation would be associated with their mental health. And, that early evidence of diminishing social mobility of offspring would already be apparent. The present study includes preliminary evidence from 14,818 (7814 male) participants from the National Institute of Health Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD Study®). At baseline, children in the sample ranged from 8.917 - 11.083 years old. To examine this issue, we investigated the association between parental mental health and the difference between children’s current SES and expected SES using linear regression. Independent variables included (parental mental health: depression, psychosis/paranoia, and mania). The independent variable was entered into the linear regression as a categorical variable indicating if either parent had any of the aforementioned mental health issues. The dependent variable is the difference between children’s current SES and expected SES. Children’s current SES was the z-scored average of two variables: the proportion of children economically disadvantaged and the receipt of free/reduced lunch. Children’s expected SES was the z-score average of two variables: parental educational attainment and income. In our analysis, a negative value would indicate that children’s current SES is lower than children’s expected SES. Results indicate that diminished social mobility can already be found in childhood (F(1,12589) = 15.63, p < .0001). Specifically, parental mental health issues was a negative statistically significant predictor of the difference between expected and current childhood SES (b = -.102, SE=.026, p < .001). The adjusted R-squared value indicated that 0.12% of the variance in childhood social mobility was explained by parental mental health. These findings indicate that diminishing childhood social mobility due to parental mental health can be detected as early as the elementary school years. Thus, providing high-quality and accessible mental health services to parents, particularly low-income parents, can be a powerful strategy for reducing the risk of childhood poverty.

Authors

• Jingwen Zhou, University of Delaware
  Presenting Author

• Stephanie Del Tufo, University of Delaware