Neighborhood Disorder, Community Social Capital, and Parental Stress of Fragile Single Mothers

Purpose

While theories and empirical research have suggested that disordered neighborhood and community social capital could influence psychological distress (Echeverrķa, 2008; Hill, 2005; Kim, 2008), few studies have examined whether such factors also affect parental stress. Furthermore, even less research has examined possible pathways through which neighborhood disorder influences parental stress. This study will first examine the impact of neighborhood disorder and community social capital (perceived mutual help, trust, value sharing, etc.) on parental stress of single mothers, and then it will examine whether community social capital mediates the relationship between neighborhood disorder and parental stress.

Method

The sample consists of 1,116 single mothers with children who were about 3-year old from the Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study (FFCW) wave 3 mother core data and three-year in-home focus child survey, conducted mainly between 2001 and 2003. FFCW initiated surveys with oversampled unwed-birth mothers in 20 U.S. large cities when they gave birth to children at around 1998-2000, and has since conducted a series of follow-up surveys. Mother's parental stress is measured with a scale (range 0-43, Cronbach alpha=.85) constructed from 12 likert-scale questions (0= strongly disagree, 4=strongly agree) that indicate mothers' various stress aspects (e.g., you feel trapped by your responsibilities as a parent?). Community social capital is measured with a scale (range 0-20, Cronbach alph=.80) constructed from 5 likert-cale questions (0= strongly disagree, 4=strongly agree) indicating mothers' perceptions of mutual help, trust, value sharing, and close-knit in the neighborhood. Neighborhood disorder (range 0-24, Cronbach alpha=.93) is measured with a scale constructed from 8 likert-scale questions (0=never, 3=frequently), indicating the prevalence of community problems such as drug dealer, drunker, and gang activates. Four OLS regression models were conducted to examine if neighborhood disorder and community social capital impact parental stress, and whether social capital mediates neighborhood disorder's impact on parental stress. Factors such as mothers' demographic features, family structure, social support, health status, and children's health and social emotional status are controlled.

Results

The multivariate analyses indicate that: (a) neighborhood disorder ((b=.09, p=.005) is positively related to parental stress; (b) community social capital (b=-.19, p<.0001) is negatively related to parental stress; (c) neighborhood disorder is also negatively associated with community social capital (b=-.32, p<.001); and (4) when neighborhood disorder and community social capital are both in the model to predict parental stress, the effects of neighborhood disorder on parental stress disappear (b=.04, p=.29). These results suggest that community social capital mediates neighborhood disorder in predicting single mothers' parental stress.

Implications

This study provides evidence on the effects of community environment on parental stress and a possible pathway of such effects. The findings of this study imply that intervention programs targeting maternal tress issues should take the impacts of community social capital and neighborhood disorder into consideration. Particularly, the mediating effect of community social capital on the relationship between neighborhood disorder and maternal distress further underlines the need of social policies and programs to strengthen community social capital.