Objective
Parents with serious mental illness may be vulnerable to financial insecurity, making successful parenting especially difficult. We explored relationships among parenting, serious mental illness and economic status in a nationally representative sample.
Methods
The sample included all working-age participants from the 2009 and 2010 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (n = 77,326). Two well-established scales of mental health distinguished participants with none, mild, moderate, and serious mental illness. We compared economic status by parenthood status and mental illness severity.
Results
Rates of employment were low for parents with serious mental illness (38% full-time and 17% part-time among mothers; 60% full-time and 9% part-time among fathers) compared to parents with no mental illness (50% full-time and 19% part-time among mothers; 85% full-time and 5% part-time among fathers). Mothers and fathers with serious mental illness were twice as likely to fall below the US Census poverty threshold than their peers without mental illness.
Conclusion and Implications for Practice
Parents with serious mental illness are less likely to be employed than those without mental illnesses and are highly likely to be living in poverty. Reducing poverty by helping parents with serious mental illness achieve better jobs and education is likely to translate into family stability and better outcomes.