Low-Income Mothers’ Material Hardship and Children’s Socioemotional WellBeing

and participants from the Fragile Families Working Group for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. We are also thankful for helpful feedback we received at the Association of Public Policy and Management Fall 2010 Conference. 2 Abstract Research suggests that children from low-income families are more likely to exhibit behavioral problems than children from wealthier families and these adverse behaviors have long-term detrimental effects on academic outcomes, health and earnings. In this paper, we examine the relationship between material hardship, an economic indicator that describes concrete adversities, and child behavior. Specifically, we use data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to examine the following questions; (a) Is material hardship associated with child socioemotional behavior, (b) Are particular hardships associated with socioemotional outcomes, and (c) Are there stronger effects for more recent or long lasting hardships? We find that children in households experiencing material hardship score significantly higher on aggressive, withdrawn, and anxious/depressed behaviors. Additionally, we find that a mother's inability to pay bills, having utilities cut off, and having unmet medical needs have particular adverse affects on child behavior. 3 Concern about the financial welfare of low-income children has been a longstanding issue for policy makers. Substantial empirical evidence demonstrates that financial hardship is related to adverse health, academic, behavioral, and social outcomes for children (Duncan and Brooks-Gunn 1997). These results have implications for the intergenerational transmission of poverty as children who grow up in low-income families have poorer academic outcomes and poorer economic prospects. Research on economic wellbeing and children's socioemotional outcomes has generally focused on measures of income and poverty and finds a relationship (e.g. Only one study has investigated the relationship between material hardship (going without basic necessities such as food or shelter) and child socioemotional behaviors (Gershoff, Aber, Raver and Lennon 2007). Although this study suggests that material hardship would affect child socioemotional development, more research is needed to understand whether hardship is detrimental to child behavior and if there are specific types of hardship that are particularly harmful. Programs that target material hardship may be able to help diminish the incidence of socioemotional problems in low income families and assist in reducing the transmission of poverty between generations. In this paper we extend previous research on material hardship and child behavior in several ways. First, we use data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study (FFCWB), a longitudinal study of …