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Economic Stress, Parenting, and Child Adjustment in Mexican American and European American Families
Author(s) -
Parke Ross D.,
Coltrane Scott,
Duffy Sharon,
Buriel Raymond,
Dennis Jessica,
Powers Justina,
French Sabine,
Widaman Keith F.
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
child development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.103
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1467-8624
pISSN - 0009-3920
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2004.00807.x
Subject(s) - acculturation , psychology , ethnic group , mexican americans , developmental psychology , depressive symptoms , marital status , child rearing , clinical psychology , demography , psychiatry , anxiety , sociology , population , anthropology
To assess the impact of economic hardship on 111 European American and 167 Mexican American families and their 5th‐grade ( M age=11.4 years) children, a family stress model was evaluated. Structural equation analyses revealed that economic hardship was linked to indexes of economic pressure that were related to depressive symptoms for mothers and fathers of both ethnicities. Depressive symptoms were linked to marital problems and hostile parenting. Paternal hostile parenting was related to child adjustment problems for European Americans, whereas marital problems were linked to child adjustment problems for Mexican Americans. Maternal acculturation was associated with both higher marital problems and lower hostile parenting. The utility of the model for describing the effects of economic hardship in Mexican Americans is noted.