Department of Sociology, Trinity College Dublin, 3 College Green, Dublin 2, Ireland.
Department of Medical Gerontology, Mercer's Institute for Successful Ageing (MISA), 8 Jame's Street, Dublin, Ireland.
Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol. 2018 Sep;53(9):987-1001. doi: 10.1007/s00127-018-1551-9. Epub 2018 Jun 27.
Social disadvantage is often associated with worse child psychological adjustment which itself is implicated in educational failure and poor adult social position. The family stress model holds that the association between social disadvantage and psychological adjustment stems from the impact of economic pressure on parental mental health mediated through the parent/child relationship.
We take advantage of a natural experiment offered by the 'great recession' in Ireland between 2008 and 2012. Structural equation models using causal modelling and Longitudinal data from the Growing Up in Ireland cohort study are used to test whether the experience of recession in families impacts on children's psychological adjustment and whether this occurs directly or is mediated by the processes identified in the family stress model.
More than 70% of families experienced a reduction in income between 2008 and 2011 and 26% reported cutting back on basics such as clothing and food. Family experience of recession was significantly associated with negative change in all of the components of the family stress model, particularly parental mental health. However, less than half of the effect of recession was mediated by the processes of the family stress model. Tests showed that a model with a direct effect of recession on child psychological adjustment provided a better fit to the data.
Recession and economic pressure had a significant effect on child psychological adjustment, but only a minority of this effect was indirect via the mental health of parents and parent/child relationship. The family stress model only offers a partial account of the mechanisms through which economic hardship impacts on families and children.
社会劣势通常与儿童心理适应不良有关，而后者又与教育失败和成年后社会地位低下有关。家庭应激模型认为，社会劣势与心理适应之间的关联源于经济压力对父母心理健康的影响，这种影响通过亲子关系传递。
我们利用 2008 年至 2012 年爱尔兰“大衰退”带来的自然实验机会。采用因果模型的结构方程模型和爱尔兰成长队列研究的纵向数据，检验家庭经历衰退是否会影响儿童的心理适应，以及这种影响是直接发生的，还是通过家庭应激模型中确定的过程发生的。
超过 70%的家庭在 2008 年至 2011 年间收入减少，26%的家庭报告削减了服装和食品等基本生活必需品的开支。家庭经历衰退与家庭应激模型的所有组成部分的负面变化都显著相关，特别是父母的心理健康。然而，只有不到一半的衰退影响是通过家庭应激模型的过程来传递的。测试表明，一个将衰退对儿童心理适应的直接影响作为模型的假设，能更好地拟合数据。
衰退和经济压力对儿童的心理适应有显著影响，但只有一小部分是通过父母的心理健康和亲子关系间接产生的。家庭应激模型仅提供了一个经济困难影响家庭和儿童的机制的部分解释。
