Unemployment, Parental Distress and Youth Emotional Well-Being: The Moderation Roles of Parent-Youth Relationship and Financial Deprivation

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Web End = Child Psychiatry Hum Dev (2016) 47:751758

DOI 10.1007/s10578-015-0610-7

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Web End = ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Unemployment, Parental Distress and Youth Emotional Well-Being: The Moderation Roles of ParentYouth Relationship and Financial Deprivation

Diana Frasquilho1 Margarida Gaspar de Matos2,3 Adilson Marques2

Fergus G. Neville4 Tnia Gaspar2,5 J. M. Caldas-de-Almeida6

Published online: 8 December 2015 Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015

Abstract We investigated, in a sample of 112 unemployed parents of adolescents aged 1019 years, the links between parental distress and change in youth emotional problems related to parental unemployment, and the moderation roles of parentyouth relationship and nancial deprivation. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and correlations. Further, simple moderation, additive moderation, and moderated moderation models of regression were performed to analyze the effects of parental distress, parentyouth relationship and nancial deprivation in predicting change in youth emotional problems

related to parental unemployment. Results show that parental distress moderated by parentyouth relationship predicted levels of change in youth emotional problems related to parental unemployment. This study provides evidence that during job loss, parental distress is linked to youth emotional well-being and that parentyouth relationships play an important moderation role. This raises the importance of further researching parental distress impacts on youth well-being, especially during periods of high unemployment rates.

Keywords Adolescence Mental health Parental

unemployment Parentchild relations

Introduction

The recent economic recession has led to an increase in unemployment levels and socioeconomic complications in several countries. Negative consequences for families and adolescents well-being in the medium and long term are expected in countries badly affected by the economic recession [13]. In most of these countries, levels of poverty are high and increasing among children and adolescents, and have been attributable to the growing rates of parental unemployment and lowering of family incomes [46]. A recent cross-national study using representative data on adolescents from 31 countries support this argument. Surveyed before and after the recession, young people in Ireland and Portugal reported a signicant rise in youth psychological health complaints associated with the increasing of unemployment rates [7]. The family context is an important determinant of well-being of adolescents [8]. In that sense, adolescents are likely to become especially vulnerable to poorer well-being and more likely to

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