Differential Experiences of Financial Strain in Response to COVID-19

• In Event: Poster Session 14
  In Poster Session: PS 14 Topic - Solicited Content: COVID-19 Related

Abstract

COVID-19 has transformed family life around the world, with impacts on daily routines, finances, and work life. In particular, the pandemic forced families to rapidly adapt in effort to make ends meet while at the same time protecting their health, safety, and financial well-being (Fontanesi et al., 2020; Prime, Wade, & Browne, 2020). A preponderance of evidence suggests that all families have been affected by these changes, however, we hypothesize that some families may be particularly vulnerable to confronting these challenges. In this study, we are interested in understanding which families have taken the hardest hit financially. Low-income families tend to have a harder time to make ends meet with typical life stressors outside of a pandemic (e.g., Bernell, Weber, & Edwards, 2006; Gershoff, 2003), and we hypothesize that the pandemic has increased financial struggles for families that were previously low-income to the pandemic. To test this hypothesis, we leverage a unique dataset to examine how income and pre-pandemic financial hardship predict American families’ experiences of hardship during the pandemic.

One hundred parents completed two online questionnaires, first when children were four years old (July 2019 to early March 2020) and then during the height of the pandemic in the United States (June to August 2020). Both baseline and COVID-19 surveys included questions about families’ finances, parents’ experiences of role strain, child-care arrangements, and other family characteristics. For this study, we examined parents reports of material hardship during the pandemic, measured through seven dichotomous items describing various experiences they may have had during the pandemic (e.g., “Did you have a toilet, bath/shower, hot water heater, or other plumbing that didn't work?”) as well as financial challenges in response to the pandemic, measured through four items directly addressing financial resources (e.g., “To what extent have you had any trouble obtaining food, toiletries, or activities/materials to support your family?”; 1 = None, 4 = Highly; α = .63). Predictor variables from the baseline survey included income-to-needs categories (low-income = below 200% of the federal poverty line, middle-income = 200-400% of the federal poverty line, and high-income = above 400% of the federal poverty guideline), food insecurity (measured through the U.S. Food Insecurity Short Form; Blumberg et al., 1999), material hardship (measured through a subset of five items used in the pandemic survey inventory), and controls.

Controlling for prior hardship and covariates, low-income families reported significantly more material hardship during the pandemic than middle-income (0.63 SDs higher) and high-income (0.86 SDs higher) families. Low-income families also reported significantly higher levels of financial struggles in response to the pandemic than both middle-income (1.00 SDs higher) and high-income (0.86 SDs higher) families. These models controlled for baseline measures, suggesting that low-income families experienced larger increases in financial hardship during the pandemic. No significant differences were observed between middle- and high-income families. These results suggest that low-income families may be particularly vulnerable to the economic impacts of the pandemic, even when accounting for prior levels of material and financial insecurity.

Authors

• Taylor Montue, University of Pittsburgh
  Presenting Author

• Leanne Elliott, University of Pittsburgh
  Non-Presenting Author

• Natalie Heywood, University of Pittsburgh
  Non-Presenting Author

• Tamara Podvysotska, University of Pittsburgh
  Non-Presenting Author

• Portia Miller, University of Pittsburgh
  Non-Presenting Author

• Heather J. Bachman, University of Pittsburgh
  Non-Presenting Author

• Melissa E Libertus, University of Pittsburgh
  Non-Presenting Author

• Elizabeth Votruba-Drzal, University of Pittsburgh
  Non-Presenting Author