Abstract

A large body of research has shown that poverty and economic pressure yield substantial stress for family relationships and parents’ as well as children's well-being. Referring to the higher salience of men's performance in the provider role, some findings suggest that father–child relations may be more vulnerable to economic hardship than mother–child relations. Our analyses focus on families with adolescents in Germany asking whether adolescents’ personal experiences of economic pressure affect their relationship with mother and father differently and whether resulting problems in adolescent–parent relationship explain negative effects of economic pressure on adolescents’ satisfaction with family life and their self-esteem. Longitudinal data come from the adolescent cohort of the German Family Panel (Pairfam) and are based on adolescents’ self-reports from waves 2 and 4 (N=1857). Overall, our cross sectional findings suggest aversive effects of economic pressure on adolescents’ closeness and conflict with both parents, with significantly stronger effects on closeness to father than mother. When controlling for previous closeness to parents, weak effects of concurrent economic pressure on adolescents’ closeness and conflict with mother and father remained significant, but did not differ significantly between both parents. Effects of previous economic pressure on adolescents’ satisfaction with family life were strongly, but not fully, mediated by diminished relationship quality with parents. Adolescents’ gender did not moderate these effects. The findings are discussed with respect to parents’ and adolescents’ coping with economic strain.

Introduction

The recent economic crisis of 2008 reflected the deepest global recession since the Great Depression (International Monetary Fund 2009). Having hit a substantial share of individual earners and their families all over the world, the recession has highlighted the many strains of financial hardship which increase the risk for compromised well-being not only among the unemployed, but also among other members of their families, last not least their children (Delgado, Killoren, and Updegraff 2013; Stein et al. 2011; Walper 2009). In fact, only rarely is it a single earner who loses income when being laid off, forced to work reduced hours, or when having to cope with reduced earnings in a self-employed business.