Gender, Coping Strategies, Homelessness Stressors, and Income Generation Among Homeless Young Adults in Three Cities

Background:

Homeless youth often earn income from formal employment as well as informal sources, or survival behaviors, which can be legal or illegal. However, few studies have examined the gendered nature of homeless youth’s involvement in legal and illegal economic activities. Prior research suggests that individual coping mechanisms might help explain why particular homeless youth engage in illegal economic activity. It might be that the strategies male and female homeless young people use to cope with homelessness stressors help explain differences in the types of economic activity they seek. To explore this supposition, this study used the risk and resilience framework to examine correlates of legal (e.g., full-time employment, selling personal possessions, selling blood/plasma) and illegal (e.g., selling drugs, theft, prostitution) economic activity by homeless young adults in three U.S. cities and how these factors vary by gender. Two research questions guided this study: 1) what coping strategies are associated with income generated from legal and illegal sources controlling for homelessness risk factors, and 2) how do these factors vary by gender?

Methods:

This study used a cross-sectional design and purposive sampling to recruit 601 homeless young adults (ages 18-24) from agencies in Los Angeles (n=200), Austin (n=200), and Denver (n=201). Face-to-face interviews using a quantitative retrospective questionnaire that included standardized measures (e.g., Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview and Coping Scale) sought information on demographics, homelessness stressors, income generation, and coping skills. Six Ordinary Least Squares regression models were created to analyze associations between correlates and legal and illegal sources of income among the full sample as well as separately with the female and male sub-samples.

Results:

In the full sample, three variables (i.e., avoidant coping, problem-focused coping, and mania) were associated with legal income generation (F=2.06[19], p<.01) whereas eight variables (i.e., social coping, age, arrest history, transience, peer substance use, antisocial personality disorder [ASPD], substance use disorder [SUD], and major depressive episode [MDE]) were associated with illegal economic activity (F=11.43[19], p<.001). In the female sub-sample, three variables (i.e., problem-focused coping, race/ethnicity, and transience) were correlated with legal income generation (F=2.44[18], p<.01) whereas six variables (i.e., problem-focused coping, social coping, age, arrest history, peer substance use, and ASPD) were correlated with illegal economic activity (F=4.98[18], p<.001). Among males, the model depicting legal income generation was not significant yet seven variables (i.e., social coping, age, transience, peer substance use, ASPD, SUD, and MDE) were associated with illegal economic activity (F=7.17[18], p<.001).

Conclusions and Implications:

Two noteworthy findings emerged from this study. First, homeless young adults who earned income from legal sources relied on greater problem-focused and fewer avoidant coping strategies. Conversely, those who relied on fewer social coping strategies were more likely to engage in illegal activity. Second, several gendered coping differences were detected that illustrate how distinct coping strategies function as protective and/or risk factors. Understanding the ways male and female homeless young adults experience and cope with adversity might help customize prevention and intervention efforts that maximize problem-focused coping to support this population in achieving safe and legal income generation.