Unemployment, Parental Distress and Youth Emotional Well-Being: The Moderation Roles of Parent–Youth Relationship and Financial Deprivation

Abstract

We investigated, in a sample of 112 unemployed parents of adolescents aged [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19] years, the links between parental distress and change in youth emotional problems related to parental unemployment, and the moderation roles of parent-youth relationship and financial deprivation.Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and correlations. Further, simple moderation, additive moderation, and moderated moderation models of regression were performed to analyze the effects of parental distress, parent-youth relationship and financial deprivation in predicting change in youth emotional problems related to parental unemployment.Results show that parental distress moderated by parent-youth relationship predicted levels of change in youth emotional problems related to parental unemployment. This study provides evidence that during job loss, parental distress is linked to youth emotional well-being and that parent-youth relationships play an important moderation role. This raises the importance of further researching parental distress impacts on youth well-being, especially during periods of high unemployment rates.

Young People Living with Unemployed Parents during a Labour Market-Crisis: How Do Portugal and Scotland Compare?

“…Our findings firstly re-emphasise the association between parental unemployment and youth low well-being (Fanjul 2014;Frasquilho et al 2015;Reinhardt Pedersen and Madsen 2002;Sleskova et al 2006). Secondly, the fact that having unemployed parents predicted health complaints among young people from Portugal but not among young people from Scotland suggest that countries' associations between parental unemployment and adolescents' wellbeing are not equal for all health indicators.…”

“…For instance previous research based on European data (e.g. Portugal, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Slovakia) has demonstrated associations between parental unemployment and adverse effects on youth well-being (Frasquilho et al 2015;Reinhardt Pedersen and Madsen 2002;Sleskova et al 2006). This paper represents an opportunistic comparison of the association between parental unemployment and the well-being of young people between two countries, Portugal and 4 Scotland, which have contrasting unemployment rates 18% vs. 7%, respectively.…”

Unemployment, life satisfaction and deprivation: Gender and partnership differences in the context of economic recession

“…These findings are corroborated by other studies [14], showing that nonparent men are better off than parents on well-being measures. These findings are rather important since fathers' low life satisfaction is likely to affect their children as well [27,28]. Thus, helping fathers to better cope with unemployment may also help protect their children's well-being during periods of unemployment.…”

The Effect of the Economic Crisis on Adolescents’ Perceived Health and Risk Behaviors: A Multilevel Analysis

“…Parental communication is one of the key ways in which the family can act as a protective health asset, helping young people to deal with stressful situations or adverse influences. Ease of parental communication and parental support are associated with positive body image, higher self-rated health, higher life satisfaction, and fewer physical and psychological complaints [13][14][15][16]. They are also less likely to participate in aggressive behaviors and substance use [17].…”

“…For children, adult unemployment may have a dual effect. On the negative side, the fact that one or both parents lose their jobs or suffer the impact of the recession may psychologically affect the child (more stress, fear, worry) and significantly reduce family wealth [16,22,23]. On the other hand, children could also benefit, at least in the short term, from their parents' unemployment situation by being able to spend more time with them, therefore being more available to communicate, help, cook, or control bad habits and influences [3,24].…”