Tangile and Intangible Supports Toward Mother's Self-Efficacy: What Helps?

Background:

Self-efficacy has been conceptualized as one’s own appraisal of personal competence and control in specific situations.  For women and mothers in particular, many factors play a role in the level of control and competence they feel in their lives including familial, financial, and other situational factors.  Legislation has sought to increase an individual’s personal responsibility and opportunity to competently work and care for their family.  This study seeks to analyze associations between certain tangible and intangible supports as to their association to low-income mothers’ self-reported levels of self-efficacy.

Methods:

This study utilized data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing (FFCW) longitudinal dataset that follows 4,898 children born between the years 1998 to 2000 to mostly unmarried parents across 20 large U.S. cities.  Variables for this study were taken from the mother’s interview using the most recent data available in year 9 of the focal child’s life.  Data was entered into SPSS and a hierarchical multiple linear regression analytic model was used.  Control variables were entered that influence mother’s sense of efficacy and control over life such as age and education level.  In the second block, tangible income and other actual financial supports were entered (TANF, food stamps, other monetary support).  In the third and final block, variables representing intangible supports were entered including perceived available loan co-signers, emergency childcare, perceived present funds to support child’s extracurricular activities, and availability of alternative living situation.

Results:

Using the FFCW data, findings show various intangible and tangible supports have statistically significant effects (p<.05) on the level of mothers reported self-efficacy when entered into a multiple hierarchical regression analysis. A negative statistically significant relationship was found between tangible supports and mother’s self-efficacy, while a positive relationship was found between perceived intangible supports and mothers reported sense of self-efficacy and perception of someone to help with child expenses (t=5.911, p<.001) and someone to loan $1000 (t=2.513, p<.05).  Variables entered into each block produced statistically significant changes in amount of variance explained with the third and final block explaining nearly 7% of the variance in mother’s level of self-efficacy (R²=.068, F=11.445, p<.001). 

Conclusion and Implications:

These findings imply that intangible supports play a significant role and have a positive association with increasing mother’s self-reported level of efficacy.  Findings support continued attention to this research area and promote the idea of providing supports towards mothers such as offering of funds accumulated and made available to help mothers with unexpected expenses and/or extracurricular child expenses (in the form of loans or grants).  Policymakers application of these principles may produce viable results in legislation that supports mother's level of personal responsiblity, opporutnity, and efficacy.