Research shows children’s mental health problems occur regardless of family income level

Can poverty exacerbate mental health problems among the youngest family members? A new study by an international team, including a researcher from SWPS University, demonstrates that financial problems do not play a significant role, and mental health problems can occur regardless of a family’s financial situation.

The work is published in the journal Current Psychology.

Poverty, or the lack of sufficient financial resources to meet basic living needs, is widely recognized as a significant risk factor for children’s mental health problems. There is evidence that higher poverty levels are associated with greater conduct problems and depression. According to the Family Stress Model (FSM), family stress and resulting parental mental health challenges reduce parenting efficacy, leading to child conduct problems.

Another theory—the Context of Stress model—is that poverty may amplify the influence of other risks on psychopathology. There are also studies that support the idea that there are interrelationships between parental and child mental health problems.

Does family income influence mental health?

“Children from lower income families are more likely to experience mental disorders, but it is unclear why. Most studies on the role of socioeconomic status in the relationship between child and parent mental health have certain methodological flaws. Research does not indicate whether family income (as a measure of poverty) affects the bidirectional relationship between parental mental health and child mental health,” explains psychologist Agata Dębowska, Ph.D., a professor at SWPS University, Faculty of Psychology in Warsaw, and co-author of the study.

“Addressing this gap in the literature is important because it will facilitate understanding the relationship between economic hardship and parental and child mental health problems,”

Researchers from the University of Sheffield, Ankara University, Lancaster University, and SWPS University investigated the impact of low economic status on relations between parental distress and child psychopathology, at both between and within-family levels. The researchers hypothesized that between and within-family reciprocal relations between parental distress and child mental health would be stronger for families in poverty than for families with higher income levels.

In addition, as some differences in developmental paths had been reported between boys and girls, models were fitted separately for each gender.

In the study, conducted using the advanced statistical method ALT-SR (Autoregressive latent trajectory modeling with structured residuals), the researchers used data from the longitudinal Millennium Cohort Study (2000-2002) conducted in the United Kingdom. The data concerned the same group of children at ages 9 months, 3, 5, 7, 11, 14, and 17 years. A total of 10,309 individuals were included in the study: 5,161 females and 5,148 males.

Poverty does not affect parent-child relations in terms of mental health

Contrary to hypotheses based on the Context of Stress model, the study found that relations between parental distress and child psychopathology were not moderated by poverty at either between or within-family levels. The results challenge existing beliefs suggesting that poverty amplifies the impact of parental distress on child mental health.

“These results contradict the concept that financial hardship depletes the resources of individuals to cope with other difficulties in their lives. In addition, our results are inconsistent with the results of the meta-analysis showing that the relations between maternal depression and child mental health problems are stronger in low-income families,” Dębowska says.

The researchers believe that a possible explanation for these discrepancies is the rigorous methodological approach applied in the new study. Furthermore, parental mental health problems may have a more direct and consistent impact on child mental health; for example, through diminished emotional availability, independent of dynamic external factors such as poverty.

Interventions for everyone

Clarifying the role of poverty in within-family mechanisms may lead to the development of more effective intervention strategies and support for families experiencing poverty.

There is still evidence that the prevalence of mental health problems is higher in low socioeconomic contexts, which is why prevention and treatment efforts should continue to prioritize low-income groups, the researchers emphasize. They also point out that if the effect of parental distress is consistent irrespective of income level, then child mental health intervention targeting should be conducted across all socioeconomic strata.

Study authors are Zeliha Ezgi Saribaz (University of Sheffield, Ankara University), Lydia Gabriela Speyer (Lancaster University), Paul Norman (University of Sheffield), Agata Dębowska (SWPS University) and Richard Rowe (University of Sheffield).