Social assets, low income and child social, emotional and behavioural wellbeing

Abstract

This article examines the association between mothers’ social assets and child social, emotional and behavioural (SEB) wellbeing for children living in a family with a persistently low income. The results show that low income is associated with lower social assets and lower SEB wellbeing in children; however, mothers living with a persistently low income but who have high social assets are significantly associated with higher levels of SEB wellbeing in their children, an interaction that is not significant for any other income quintile. Additionally, many of the sociodemographic variables assumed in the literature to be important in terms of child SEB wellbeing, such as family composition, young motherhood and maternal ethnicity, reduce in significance once income and mothers’ social assets are taken into account.

The triple bind of single-parent families

“…These findings are in line with evidence suggesting that lower levels of wellbeing among single parents and their children are not inherently associated with family composition, but rather -and to an important extent -with single parents' disadvantaged economic position (Lang & Zagorsky, 2001;Treanor, 2016). In the US, the literature has focused on the resources of single parents as diverging destinies: single parenthood has become increasingly common among those with fewer socioeconomic resources, such as the lower educated (McLanahan, 2004).…”

“…It emerges in Chapter Four, alongside other work by Treanor (2016), that material deprivation outweighs number of parents in determining children's horizons for flourishing, so that the increased likelihood that single parents will live in poverty has a greater effect on their children's wellbeing than their singleness. The children of wealthy single parents are advantaged over the children of co-parents living in poverty.…”

Income poverty, material deprivation and lone parenthood

“…The control variables are mother's age at first birth child, child's gender and mother's level of education which are factors known to confound the effects of socioeconomic disadvantage on children's outcomes (Schoon, Jones, Cheng, & Maughan, 2012;M. Treanor, 2016aM. Treanor, , 2016b).…”

The Triple Bind of Single-Parent Families

“…The control variables are mother's age at the birth of her first child, the child's gender and the mother's level of education, which are factors known to confound the effects of socioeconomic disadvantage on children's outcomes (Schoon et al, 2012;Treanor, 2016aTreanor, , 2016b.…”