Racial-ethnic disparities in maternal parenting stress: the role of structural disadvantages and parenting values.

Although researchers contend that racial-ethnic minorities experience more stress than whites, knowledge of racial-ethnic disparities in parenting stress is limited. Using a pooled time-series analysis of data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-99 (n = 11,324), we examine racial-ethnic differences in maternal parenting stress, with a focus on structural and cultural explanations and variations by nativity and child age. In kindergarten, black mothers, albeit U.S.-born only, report more parenting stress than white mothers due to structural disadvantages and authoritarian parenting values. The black-white gap increases from kindergarten to third grade, and in third grade, U.S.-born black mothers' higher stress than white mothers' persists after controlling for structural and parenting factors. Hispanic and Asian mothers, albeit foreign-born only, report more stress than white mothers at both ages due to structural disadvantages and authoritarian values. Despite structural disadvantages, American Indian mothers report less stress.