Using primary data from the Assessing the Social Consequences of COVID-19 study, the authors examined how the pandemic affected the stress levels of women with and without coresiding minor children (mothers vs. nonmothers), paying special attention to the moderating role of employment status. The ordinary least squares regression results show that following the pandemic outbreak, among full-time working women, mothers reported smaller stress increases than nonmothers. In contrast, among part-time and nonemployed women, mothers and nonmothers experienced similar stress increases. Also, full-time working mothers reported smaller stress increases than women with most other mothering and employment statuses. Changes in women’s employment status, following pandemic onset, had limited impacts on the patterns of stress change. This study contributes to research on parenting and health by showing that during times of crisis, full-time employment may be protective of mothers’ mental health but may not buffer the mental health deterioration of women not raising children.

Objective: This study examines racial and nativity differences in mothers’ parental stress levels, and how mothers’ socioeconomic status (SES), including education, employment, and household income predict their levels of parental stress.Background: SES is an important predictor of mothers’ parental stress. Racial minority and immigrant mothers generally face higher parental stress than native-born White mothers. However, less is known about if the differences in stress are caused by racial and nativity disparities in SES or by the diverse impacts of SES on the stress of mothers from different racial and nativity groups.Method: Using the second wave of Early Childhood Longitudinal Study: 2010-11 Kindergarten Class (N=8,336, https://nces.ed.gov/ecls/), I estimated racial and nativity differences in parental stress levels using OLS regression. Regression coefficients were compared across racial and nativity groups using Stata’s suest and test commands to explore racial and nativity differences in how SES predicts parental stress.Result: Foreign-born Black, Hispanic, Asian, and native-born Asian mothers experienced higher parental stress than native-born White mothers. Low SES was associated with higher parental stress among Black and Hispanic mothers, especially among foreign-born Black mothers. Among White and Asian mothers, socioeconomic disadvantage did not necessarily predict higher parental stress. Conclusion: Disparities in SES are not enough to explain racial minority and immigrant mothers’ higher parental stress relative to native-born White mothers. The impact of SES on parental stress also varies across racial and nativity groups, possibly due to the systemic racism against Black and Hispanic population, and the racial and nativity differences in motherhood ideology.

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This research studies whether children’s gender influences household adults’ perceptions of their illnesses and the pattern of seeking medical treatments for them, the aim of which is to understand to what extent minor girls (under 15) are discriminated against in Chinese rural households’ allocation of curative healthcare. Using the 2014 wave of China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), we find that households in rural China do allocate more medical resources to boys than girls. Gender differences mainly exist in children’s hospitalization rates and medical expenditures. Girls are especially disadvantaged as they grow older. They also face an added problem of sibling rivalry that leads to sick girls being less likely to be taken to a hospital when they have siblings of the same gender. These results suggest that sick girls in rural China may not be able to receive sufficient curative healthcare due to son preference. This is not only a threat to girls’ well-being, but also a potential cause of the imbalanced sex-ratio of the Chinese population.

Using primary data from the Assessing the Social Consequences of COVID-19 study (N=1,647), we examined how the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the stress levels (i.e., pre-pandemic vs. during-pandemic stress) of women with and without coresiding minor children, paying special attention to the moderating role of women’s employment status. Results from OLS regression models show that following the pandemic outbreak, among women who worked full-time, mothers reported smaller stress increases than non-mothers. Among part-time and non-employed women, mothers and non-mothers experienced similar levels of stress increase. Changes in women’s work hours and employment status, following the pandemic onset, had limited impacts on the patterns of stress level changes. This study contributes to research on parenting and health by showing that during times of crisis, full-time employment may play a protective role for mother’s mental health, but may not buffer the mental health deterioration of women not raising children.