Chaos and the macrosetting: The role of poverty and socioeconomic status.

Abstract

You can never plan a week or a day ahead... one minute you're fine and the next you just can't deal.-Low-income mother describing daily life (Roy, Tubbs, & Burton, 2004, p. 174) There are many reasons why the lives of children from low-income households are more chaotic than are those from middle-and high-income households. Lowincome parents suffer from a plethora of physical and social stressors. Poor parents juggle overlapping time obligations and have fewer resources than do wealthier parents to deal with the multitude of demands and obligations they face. Low-income parents are less likely to have a dependable car; they cannot afford reliable flexible child care or after-school care; their children are enrolled less often in structured child or youth programs; and low-income parents are less likely to have a partner, who could share household management and parenting responsibilities. Residential and school relocations, which erode social networks, are more common, and family disruptions and turmoil are more frequent among low-income families (Evans, 2004). In this chapter we document linkages between poverty and low socioeconomic status (SES) and chaos, review studies examining chaos as a mediator of poverty's impacts on children, and offer preliminary thoughts about why chaos is problematic for children's development. Chaos, Poverty, and Socioeconomic StatusComponents of chaos associated with poverty and SES include household crowding, noise levels, household routines and rituals, residential and school relocation, and parental partner instability. For each of these components of chaos, we have constructed a summary table. These tables are not included because of length restrictions but can be found at http://www.macses.ucsf.edu/Research/ Social%20Environment/notebook/chaos.html. Chaos is operationalized in a few studies as a composite variable, with these results summarized in Table 7. Herein 225

Relation of home chaos to cognitive performance and behavioral adjustment of Pakistani primary school children

“…Further, these associations between chaos and child outcomes were independent of family SES, child gender, or city of residence. The present findings are also consistent with earlier research reviewed by Evans, Eckenrode, and Marcynyszyn (2010) showing that, in Western developed countries, environmental chaos is a unique predictor of children's development, over and above the influence of SES. The findings linking home chaos to an increased risk of child externalizing problems may be of particular relevance to developing societies like Pakistan.…”

Predictors of behavioral regulation in kindergarten: Household chaos, parenting, and early executive functions.

“…Thus, chaos disorganization may be the more proximal process in the home that captures some of the poverty related adversity that leads to poorer parenting. Furthermore, it has been argued that even though many studies have controlled for poverty in examining chaos effects on children's development, most of these previous studies did not include large enough samples of low-income children to truly understand whether chaos was a unique contributor to development (Evans et al, 2010). The current study had a large proportion of low-income children in a representative sample of children who lived in low wealth rural communities.…”

Families experiencing housing instability: The effects of housing programs on family routines and rituals.

“…When families cannot maintain family processes while experiencing homelessness, the stressors of poverty and homelessness can be compounded for both caregivers and children (Evans & English, 2002; Evans, Eckenrode, & Marcynyszyn, 2010; Linver et al, 2002). The absence or disruption of regular family processes has been described as a form of chaos that stands at odds with family and individual well-being (Fiese & Winter, 2010).…”