TY - JOUR
T1 - Hard Times and Heart Break
T2 - Linking Economic Hardship and Relationship Distress
AU - Williams, Deadric T.
AU - Cheadle, Jacob E.
AU - Goosby, Bridget J.
N1 - Funding Information:
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This study was supported by Grant K01 HD 064537 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (Principal Investigator: Bridget Goosby).
Funding Information:
The authors would like to thank Kim Tyler and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. We would also like to thank the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) through grants R01HD36916, R01HD39135, and R01HD40421, as well as a consortium of private foundations for their support of the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study.
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2013
PY - 2015/6/4
Y1 - 2015/6/4
N2 - We used the Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study to examine an integrated mediational model linking economic hardship to relationship distress. Depressive symptoms, partner’s discord, parenting stress, and coparenting are combined into a joint model linking economic hardship to relationship distress among mothers and fathers in intimate relationships. Although economic hardship is significantly associated with each mediating factor, only discord is associated with both relationship distress and dissolution in the full model. Moreover, comparisons using multigroup structural equation modeling indicate that while economic hardship is associated with higher discord among both mothers and fathers, the influence is substantially larger among fathers. We suggest that the link between hardship and relationship distress is largely contingent on interactional processes (i.e., discord) and how mothers perceive their child’s father in the midst of economic hard times.
AB - We used the Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study to examine an integrated mediational model linking economic hardship to relationship distress. Depressive symptoms, partner’s discord, parenting stress, and coparenting are combined into a joint model linking economic hardship to relationship distress among mothers and fathers in intimate relationships. Although economic hardship is significantly associated with each mediating factor, only discord is associated with both relationship distress and dissolution in the full model. Moreover, comparisons using multigroup structural equation modeling indicate that while economic hardship is associated with higher discord among both mothers and fathers, the influence is substantially larger among fathers. We suggest that the link between hardship and relationship distress is largely contingent on interactional processes (i.e., discord) and how mothers perceive their child’s father in the midst of economic hard times.
KW - economic hardship
KW - family stress
KW - interpersonal discord
KW - parenting stress
KW - relationship distress
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U2 - 10.1177/0192513X13501666
DO - 10.1177/0192513X13501666
M3 - Article
C2 - 26097273
AN - SCOPUS:84930408581
SN - 0192-513X
VL - 36
SP - 924
EP - 950
JO - Journal of Family Issues
JF - Journal of Family Issues
IS - 7
ER -