Poster #56 - Economic Stress and Child Outcomes: The Family Stress Model Among Asian American Families During COVID-19

• In Event: Poster Session 09

Abstract

Limited research has examined the impact of financial stress on families since the onset of COVID-19, specifically among Asian American (AA) parents. AA parents experienced a disproportionate amount of economic and psychological distress during COVID-19 (Kormendi & Brown, 2021; Zhang et al., 2020) with AA individuals experiencing the greatest rate of unemployment increase across all racial/ethnic groups in the U.S. (Khan & Shih, 2021). Informed by the Family Stress Model (Figure 1), this study examined the links between economic stress, parental psychological distress, parenting behaviors, and child outcomes in AA families during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants were 243 AA parents of children ages 2-19 years old (mean age = 40.6, 84.3% women) who were recruited from a larger longitudinal study examining parents’ experiences during COVID-19; only baseline data was used. The sample was representative of a diverse number of East Asian subgroups; the majority were Chinese (32.7%) and Taiwanese (30.3%). Using AMOS, structural equation modeling was conducted to determine the direct and indirect relationships between economic stress, parent psychological distress (i.e., anxiety and depression), parenting behaviors, and child outcomes (i.e., internalizing and externalizing behaviors). The overall model fit was good (x2(19, N = 243) = 35.543, p = 0.012, CFI = 0.978; RMSEA = 0.060). Findings revealed significant positive direct relationships between economic stress and both depressive (b = .30, p < .01) and anxiety symptoms (b = .28, p < .01). Depressive symptoms were negatively associated with quality time (b = -.37, p < .01) and proactive parenting (b = -.30, p < .05), and positively associated with negative parenting (b = .20 , p < .05). Anxiety symptoms were positively associated with negative parenting (b = .22, p < .05), proactive parenting (b = .22, p < .05), and child internalizing behaviors (b = .19, p < .05). Family conflict was positively associated with child externalizing behaviors (b = .19, p < .05), and quality time was negatively related to child externalizing (b = -.41, p < .01 ). Both negative parenting (b = -.15, p < .05 ) and parenting warmth (b = -.17, p < .05) were negatively associated with child internalizing behaviors. Using the Sobel test, a significant mediation effect was revealed between economic stress and child internalizing behaviors through anxiety (z = 1.79, p < .05). These findings reinforced the impact of economic stress on parent and child outcomes, specifically during a time of added stress. In particular, the significant indirect path suggests that interventions aimed at reducing parental anxiety may be especially important in preventing child internalizing behaviors. Therefore, these results highlight the need to develop policies and interventions aimed at providing economically burdened AA parents with mental health care and parenting support. The presence of only one indirect effect indicates that there may be additional mechanisms through which economic stress impacts child well-being in this specific context. Future studies could examine other potential mediating variables, such as additional parental stressors related to COVID-19 and the influence of cultural factors in parenting behaviors among AA parents.

Authors

• Annie Fanta, Columbia University
  Presenting Author

• Cindy J Huang, Columbia University

• William Tsai, New York University

• Cindy Y. Huang, Columbia University