Social Support for Unmarried Mothers and Wellbeing

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Social Support for Unmarried Mothers and
Well-being

• Kristen Harknett
• University of Pennsylvania
• harknett_at_sas.upenn.edu

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What is Social Support?

• functions performed for the individual by
  significant others
• a coping resource a social fund from which
  people may draw when handling stressors
• instrumental, informational, and/or emotional
  assistance
• Thoits 1995

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Importance of Social Support

• Perception that support is available associated
  with
• better mental and physical health (House et al.
  1988 Thoits 1995)
• buffering effect when faced with stressful event
  (Wethington and Kessler 1986)
• less hardship (Henly, Danziger, and Offer 2005)
• more employment and earnings and less welfare
  receipt (Harknett 2006)
• Better child outcomes (Ryan et al. 2008)

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Open questions

• Know much less about marital and parental strains
  than we do about employment strains (Thoits 1995)
• Literature has considered social support almost
  exclusively as an independent, mediating, or
  moderating variable. For scientific and policy
  reasons, social support must also be viewed as a
  dependent variable. (House et al. 1988)
• Need to know more about when stressors mobilize
  or erode support (Thoits 1995)

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My Contributions

• Stresses of parental status
• Many children, temperament, health
• Focus on unmarried women, the group most
  vulnerable to stresses of parenthood
• Support as a dependent variable
• Build upon recent research on material supports
  and material hardship

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Research Questions

• How is perceived support related to well-being?
• Which unmarried mothers lack perceived support?
• Do the stresses of parenthood mobilize or erode
  support?
• Do perceived supports act as a buffer against
  material hardship and depression?

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Data

• Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study
• Mostly nonmarital births in urban areas
• Disproportionately low-income and minority
• 20 cities representative of nonmarital births
  in urban areas
• N4,898 new mothers (not all first time mothers)
• 3 waves, 1998-2000 baseline, 1 year, 3 year
  follow-ups
• My Sample
• N3,608 unmarried mothers

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Measuring Social Support

• Perceived Support
• Safety net, good to have
• Correlated with well-being
• Personality characteristic?
• Perceptions inaccurate?

• Received support
• Actual support, absence not necessarily bad
• Correlated with need
• Strings attached?
• Not based on perceptions

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Perceived Instrumental Support
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Perceived Support Trajectories
Numbers in parentheses indicate presence of
support at baseline, 1 year, and 3 years,
respectively. (e.g, 1,1,1 support in all 3
waves)
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Measuring Material Hardship (scale 0-12)

• In the past 12 months
• - did you receive free food or meals?
• - did your (child/children) go hungry?
• - did you go hungry?
• - did you not pay the full amount of rent or
  mortgage payments?
• - were you evicted from your home or apartment
  for not paying the rent or mortgage?
• - did you not pay the full amount of a gas, oil
  or electricity bill?
• - was service turned off by the gas or electric
  company, or did the oil company not deliver oil?
• - was service disconnected by the telephone
  company because payments were not made?
• - did you borrow money from friends or family to
  help pay bills?
• - did you move in with other people even for a
  little while because of financial problems?
• - did you stay at a shelter, in an abandoned
  building, an automobile or any other place not
  meant for regular housing even for one night?
• - was there anyone in your household who needed
  to see a doctor or go to the hospital but
  couldn't go because of the cost?

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Measuring Depression

• During the past 12 months, has there ever been a
  time when you felt sad, blue, or depressed for
  two or more weeks in a row?
• Did you lose interest in most things like
  hobbies, work, or activities that usually give
  you pleasure?
• Did you feel more tired out or low on energy than
  is usual for you?
• Did you gain or lose weight without trying, or
  did you stay about the same?
• Did you have more trouble falling asleep than you
  usually do?
• Did you have a lot more trouble concentrating
  than usual?
• People sometimes feel down on themselves, no
  good, or worthless. During that two week period,
  did you feel this way?
• Did you think a lot about death--either your own,
  someone else?s, or death in general?

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Unadjusted means. Has support and lacks
support groups are significantly different
plt.001.
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Unadjusted means. Has support and lacks
support groups are significantly different
plt.01.
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Who Lacks Support? Older, Minority, and
Immigrant Mothers
n3608 plt0.01 plt0.05
plt0.10
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Who Lacks Support? Mothers who Lack Personal
Resources
n3608 plt0.01 plt0.05
plt0.10
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Do Parenting Stressors Mobilize or Erode Support?

• Log odds(PERt3) a ß1STRt2 ß2PERt1
  ßnXt1
• PER is perceived support 0/1
• STR is parenting stressor
• X is a vector of mother characteristics

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Measuring Parental Stressors

• Mean or
• Focal child in fair/poor health (0/1) .3
• Focal child temperament (1-5) 2.6
• Child tends to be shy
• often fusses and cries
• is very sociable
• gets upset easily
• reacts strongly when upset
• is very friendly with strangers
• 4 children in the household (0/1) 10

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Parental Stressors and Perceived Support at
follow-up
Logit coefficients are shown. Standard errors are
in parentheses. plt.01 plt.05 plt.10
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Parental Stressors and Perceived Support at
follow-up
Logit coefficients are shown. Standard errors are
in parentheses. plt.01 plt.05 plt.10
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Parental Stressors and Perceived Support at
follow-up
Logit coefficients are shown. Standard errors are
in parentheses. plt.01 plt.05 plt.10
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Parental Stressors and Perceived Support at
follow-up
Logit coefficients are shown. Standard errors are
in parentheses. plt.01 plt.05 plt.10
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Cohen Wills 1985
From Cohen Wills 1985 Psych Bulletin
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Measuring Main and Buffering Effects of Perceived
Support

• (1) WBt2a ß1STRt2 ßmPERt1 ßnXt1 e
• (2) WBt2a ßb(ß1STRt2 ßmPERt1) ßnXt1
  e
• WB is hardship scale (0-12) or depression
  probability
• STR is parenting stressor
• PER is perceived support 0/1
• X is a vector of mother characteristics

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Child Health and Hardship
OLS coefficients shown. plt.01 plt.05 plt.10
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Temperament Hardship
OLS coefficients shown. plt.01 plt.05 plt.10
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4 Children Hardship
OLS coefficients shown. plt.01 plt.05 plt.10
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Child Health and Depression
OLS coefficients shown. plt.01 plt.05 plt.10
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Temperament Depression
OLS coefficients shown. plt.01 plt.05 plt.10
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4 Children Depression
OLS coefficients shown. plt.01 plt.05 plt.10
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Summary and Implications

• Perceived support protects against hardship and
  depression
• Parental stressors erode rather than mobilize
  perceived support
• Little evidence that perceived instrumental
  support has a buffering effect
• Importance of public safety net for those without
  private safety net and those with parental
  stressors

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end
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Unadjusted means. Generous is significantly
different than conservative or minimal plt.05.
Other differences are not significant.
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Family size inversely related to perceived
support and positively related to received
support (re models)
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Summary

• 1) How is family size related to social support?
• Mothers with larger families perceive less but
  receive more
• (However, an increase in family size is not
  associated with a decline in support in the
  short-term)
• 2) How is child age related to social support?
• Mothers with school-aged children perceive less
  but receive more
• 3) Does having or lacking support encourage
  childbearing?
• Perceiving and receiving support are associated
  with parity progression