This study evaluated the applicability of the family economic stress model (FESM) in understanding the influences of economic hardship on child mental health during a nationwide economic recession in Finland. The information was gathered from 527 triads of 12-year-olds and their mothers and fathers from a population sample. The structural equation models showed that the FESM fit the data well, indicating its generalizability in Finnish society. The results confirmed that a reduction in disposable family income constitutes a risk for child mental health through increased economic pressure and negative changes in parental mental health, marital interaction, and parenting quality. Controlling the children's prerecession mental health substantiated that economic hardship can lead to deterioration in children's mental health. Alternative models based on fully recursive analyses revealed reciprocal influences between parents and their children over time: Children's prerecession mental health problems predicted compromised parenting, which in turn contributed to children's internalizing and externalizing symptoms during the recession.

Child development, epidemiology, gender, marital relationships, mental health, parenting.

Finland, one of the welfare states of northern Europe, faced an exceptionally deep economic recession at the beginning of the 1990s. Based on the Family Stress Model (Conger & Elder, 1994) we studied specific mediating paths between economic hardship and the different domains of parenting in 527 mother-father-child triads. The results show that economic hardship created economic pressures for both parents. For fathers, both the general and specific pressures were further associated with symptoms of anxiety and social dysfunction, whereas for mothers, only the specific economic pressures were negatively reflected in mental health by increasing depressing mood and anxiety symptoms. Paternal anxiety was then associated with hostile marital interaction, perceived by the wife, and maternal anxiety with low marital support, perceived by the husband. The negative marital interaction finally was associated with poor parenting, especially among the fathers. Fathers’ anxiety was also directly related to their punitive and noninvolved fathering, and social dysfunction to noninvolved fathering. Depressive symptoms in mothers were negatively reflected in authoritative mothering. Finally, the results revealed that supportive and nonhostile marital interaction was able to moderate the negative impact of economic hardship on parenting. The findings suggest that mothers and fathers fulfil gendered roles in dealing with the family economy and relationships.

This study focused on how factors outside the home affect the quality of mothering and fathering. Economic pressure and workload were evaluated along with the compensating role of social support on parenting. Information was gathered from 842 mothers and 573 fathers including 139 single-mother and 21 single-father families. The results showed that the nature of the strains, together with parental gender and family structure, influenced their effects on parenting. The results further revealed some gender- and strain-specific protective functions of social support on parenting. For example, economic pressure was related to increased punitive parenting, which was compensated by instrumental and emotional support among the mothers. Workload was related to less authoritative single fathering, which was compensated by instrumental support.