The Toll of Economic Strain Among Single Mothers of Young Children

Background: It is critical to understand the mechanisms that may drive inequities in child well-being, especially in early life, as adversities can have long-lasting effects. Despite their growth over the past few decades, families headed by single mothers are subject to greater economic disadvantage in addition to the challenges they experience with less built-in social support compared to 2-parent families. The Family Stress Model (Conger et al., 2000) suggests that economic strains threaten child well-being by compromising family relationships and interactions. The current study examined the direct relationships between low family SES and flourishing in early childhood and if this relationship was indirectly related via compromised family engagement and increased parenting stress as proposed by the family stress model.

Method: We drew an analytic sample of 1284 children 1- 3 years old from the National Survey of Children’s Health combined data from 2020 and 2021. The NSCH is an annual, cross-sectional survey of non-institutionalized children in the US; by combining data from 2020 and 2021, the NSCH is able to increase sample sizes of subgroups such as single mothers and increase statistical power. Direct and effects were tested using structural equation modeling; analyses were performed using Mplus v 8.8. Low Family SES was assessed by three binary variables (yes=1, 0= no): whether the children’s mothers received government assistance, lived between 0-199% FPL, and experienced hardships obtaining basic needs. Parenting stress was assessed by the mothers’ agreement on a 4-point scale (never, rarely, sometimes, usually) statements about parenting challenges (e.g., child is hard to care for). Parenting engagement was assessed by 2 ordinal variables asking mothers to rate the frequency to which they sang to or shared stories with the child or read to the child (higher scores denote higher frequency). Flourishing assessed the degree to which the children demonstrated resilience and attachment to their parents (e.g., child is affectionate and tender) and was scored on 4 point scale, with higher scores indicating higher frequencies. Covariates included child’s assigned biological sex and race/ethnicity.

Results: The measurement model and structural models demonstrated acceptable model fit, (x²₍₅₂₎= 239.442 [p<0.001], RMSEA= 0.056 [CI 0.049 - 0.064], CFI=0.967, TLI=0.954; x²₍₇₂₎= 384.059 [p<0.001], RMSEA= 0.045 [CI 0.040 - 0.050], CFI=0.955, TLI=0.943, respectively). Direct effects were as follows: low family SES was directly and negatively associated with flourishing, parenting stress was negatively associated with parental engagement and flourishing, and parental engagement was positively associated with higher levels of flourishing. Low Family SES was not significantly associated with parenting stress. The only indirect effect observed was that low family SES was indirectly associated with flourishing via diminished levels of parenting engagement (-0.033, p<0.01).

Conclusion: Low family SES was found to compromise parental engagement among a sample of single mothers with young children. While not directly influenced by SES, parenting stress was associated with lower parental engagement and child flourishing. Early childhood initiatives and policies need to target services to assuage parenting stress and provide mothers with economic support to promote child well-being.