The Impact of Economic Hardship on Black

Families and Children: Psychological Distress,

Parenting, and Socioemotional Development

Vonnie C. McLoyd
University of Michigan

MCLOYD, VONNIE G. The Impact of Economic Hardship on Black Families and Children: Psycho-
logical Distress, Parenting, and Socioemotional Development. GHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1990, 61,311-
346. Family processes affecting the socioemotional functioning of children living in poor families
and families experiencing economic decline are reviewed. Black children are of primary interest in
the article because they experience disproportionate shares of the burden of poverty and economic
loss and are at substantially higher risk than white children of experiencing attendant socioemo-
tional problems. It is argued that (a) poverty and economic loss diminish the capacity for supportive,
consistent, and involved parenting and render parents more vulnerable to the debilitating effects of
negative life events, {b) a major mediator of the link between economic hardship and parenting
behavior is psychological distress deriving from an excess of negative life events, undesirable
chronic conditions, and the absence and disruption of marital bonds, (c) economic hardship ad-
versely affects children's socioemotional functioning in part through its impact on the parent's
behavior toward the child, and (d) father-child relations under conditions of economic hardship
depend on the quality of relations between tlie mother and father. The extent to which psychologi-
cal distress is a source of race differences in parenting behavior is considered. Finally, attention is
given to the mechanisms by which parents' social networks reduce emotional strain, lessen the
tendency toward punitive, coercive, and inconsistent parenting behavior, and, in tum, foster posi-
tive socioemotional development in economically deprived children.

Black children always have bome a dis-
proportionate share of the burden of poverty
and economic decline in America, and they
are at substantially higher risk than white
children for experiencing an array of socio-
emotional problems (Gibbs, 1989; Myers &
King, 1983). Drawing from disparate bodies
of literature, this article examines parental be-
havior and family processes as consequences
of poverty and economic loss and, in tum,
as antecedents of impaired socioemotional
functioning in black children. Although eco-
nomic hardship can adversely affect parental
and family functioning, several factors temper
these effects. In this article, attention is fo-
cused on sources of variation in parents' re-
sponses to economic hardship and the impli-
cations of these relations for black children's
socioemotional development.
The data base concerning blacks is un-
even. Black mothers and children living in
poverty have been the focus of numerous psy-
chological studies, but data about poor black
fathers are sparse. Gonversely, a modest
amount of research exists concerning eco-
nomic loss as experienced by blacks, but this
work, hke that on whites, focuses almost ex-
clusively on men. Little is known about how
economic loss affects black women and black
children or the mechanisms by which these
effects might occur. Gonsequently, although
blacks are the focal concern in this article, the
discussion of the effects of economic loss on
children rehes heavily on research based on
white samples, most of which comes from two
periodsthe 1930s and the 1980s,
Analytic Framework
T^. i i ^^ j i r
. F^g^el presents an analytic model of
how Poverty and economic loss affect black
children. This model functions as a frame-
work tor examining and organizing the re-
search reviewed in this article. The central
aim of the article is to demonstrate that a
broad array of studies, taken together, provide
strong support for the model. The model is

Preparation of this manuscript was supported in part by a Faculty Scholar Award in Ghild
Mental Health from the William T. Grant Foundation. The author is grateful to Eve Trager for
bibliographic assistance and to Mutombo Mpanya, Leon Wilson, Patricia Gurin, Oscar Barbarin, and
three anonymous reviewers for valuable comments on the original version of the manuscript. Send
requests for reprints to Vonnie G. McLoyd, Department of Psychology, 3433 Mason Hall, University
of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109.
[Child Development, 1990, 61, 311-346. 1990 by the Society for Research in Child Development, Inc.
All rights reserved. 0009-3920/90/6102.^0020$01.00]
312 Child Development
Parent
'ApptBisal
Personality
Financial Resources
Psychological
Distress
Poverty Marital
Economic Loss Bond
# moderator variables
FIG. 1.Analytic model of how poverty and economic loss affect black children
representative of the person-process-context
model espoused by Bronfenbrenner (1986)
in that it describes the impact of economic
hardship on family processes as a function of
personal characteristics of individual family
members, including the child. Its principal
assumptions are that (a) poverty and eco-
nomic loss diminish the capacity for support-
ive, consistent, and involved parenting; {b) a
major mediator of the link between economic
hardship and parenting behavior is psycho-
logical distress deriving from an excess of
negative life events, undesirable chronic con-
ditions, and the absence and disruption of
marital bonds; (c) economic loss and poverty
affect children indirectly through their impact
on the parent's behavior toward the child; and
{d) fether-child relations under conditions of
economic hardship depend on the quality of
relations between the mother and father.
Basic elements of the conceptual frame-
work as it pertains to economic loss are drawn
from Elder's pioneering studies of white
families of the Great Depression (Elder, 1979;
Elder, Liker, & Cross, 1984; Elder, Nguyen,
& Caspi, 1985). This research indicated that
fathers who sustained heavy financial loss
became more irritable, tense, and explosive,
which in turn increased their tendency to be
punitive toward the child. They also became
more arbitrary, defined here as being incon-
sistent in discipline as a function of mood.
These negative fathering behaviors were pre-
Social Support and Controls
Extended Family Menibers
j^ctra&milial Individuals
Connnunity
Child
Parental
Socioemotional
Behavior
Problems
Relations
I ChUd
Temperament
Physical Appearance
dictive of several socioemotional problems in
the child.
A number of economic and social
changes occurring since the Depression (e.g.,
unemployment compensation, severance pay,
employment of spouse, and the fact that un-
employment precipitated by job loss tends to
be of shorter duration) probably lessen the
negative impact of job and income loss in to-
day's context (Jahoda, 1979; LeGrande, 1983).
Although the magnitude of the effects may
differ, the direction of effects and the mecha-
nisms by which economic loss affects chil-
dren are similar for these two periods. The
causal pathway documented by Elder linking
economic loss to the child through the father's
behavior has been replicated in recent studies
of contemporary white children (Galambos &
Silbereisen, 1987a; Kelley, Sheldon, & Fox,
1985; Lempers, Clark-Lempers, & Simons,
1989). Furthermore, other research is consis-
tent with the mediational model presented
here, although not focusing on fathers or
economic hardship in particular. Patterson's
(1988; Patterson, DeBarsyshe, & Ramsey,
1989) studies, for example, demonstrate con-
vincingly that stressful experiences increase
psychological distress in mothers and pro-
duce changes in family and child-manage-
ment practices. Distressed mothers' increased
use of aversive, coercive discipline in tum
contributes to antisocial behavior in the
child.

There are legitimate reasons for ques-
tioning extrapolation from white families ex-
periencing economic loss to black families.
Differences in economic resources, employ-
ment opportunities, perceptions of the causes
of economic loss, and other factors associated
with race may modify responses to economic
loss. We know of no carefully controlled stud-
ies of changes in the parenting behavior of
blacks in response to economic loss, but there
are a few investigations of the effects of un-
employment on the psychological functioning
of black men. These studies report numerous
negative effects, some of which are more pro-
nounced in blacks than whites. Furthermore,
certain factors that buffer negative effects in
whites operate in a similar fashion among
blacks (Buss & Redbum, 1983). To a limited
extent, this similarity between findings miti-
gates the issue of generalizability and bolsters
confidence that other links in the model docu-
mented only for whites are generalizable to
blacks. Ultimately, though, only careful study
of black children in families experiencing
economic loss will resolve decisively the
question of whether they are affected by eco-
nomic loss through processes similar to those
documented for contemporary as well as De-
pression-era white families.
Like economic decline, poverty and
lower-class status are marked by relatively
punitive and coercive pattems of parenting
behavior and in several theoretical formula-
tions, the underlying cause is seen to be psy-
chological distress in the parent (Gecas,
1979). For example, in his fmstration-ag-
gression hypothesis, McKinley (1964) argued
that negative life conditions lead to frustration
that evokes aggression. According to this
view, aggression often is displaced to the fam-
ily where fewer restraints exist than in the
workplace and other settings. The theoretical
perspectives of this genre do not always
clearly distinguish between lower-class and
working-class parents, who are contrasted to
middle-class parents. Nonetheless, they share
a common explanatory model which assumes
that stressful life conditions endemic to lower
status adversely affect the parent's psycholog-
ical orientation, or emotional state, which in
tum influence parent-child interaction. The
centerpiece of many of these theories, espe-
cially those growing out of the "culture of
poverty" framework, are personality charac-
teristics of parents. These characteristics are
seen as stable, deficient, and maintained by
intergenerational transmission of lifeways in-
dependent of poverty, even though they are
thought to have developed initially as adap-
Vonnie C. McLoyd 313
tations to the conditions of poverty (Gecas,
1979).
This article depsirts from the emphasis on
stable "cultural" traits and instead devotes
special attention to the mediational role of
psychological distress, seen here as a norma-
tive and situational response to economic
hardship. The idea that psychological distress
mediates the link between economic hard-
ship and parenting behavior has a long history
(Gecas, 1979), but there exists only indirect
empirical support for it, most of it produced in
the last decade. In the discussion that follows,
this work is highlighted and interpreted as
lending support to the causal assumptions in
our model. It must be conceded, however,
that there are altemative explanations of the
links among economic disadvantage, psy-
chological characteristics, and parenting. It
is possible, for example, that parents have
psychological characteristics that predispose
them to both economic hardship and punitive
parenting. The hypothesis that poverty is
caused by psychological factors is espoused
in a number of ethnographic studies (e.g.,
Lewis, 1966). Perhaps the most serious chal-
lenge to that view is rendered by the Panel
Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). This lon-
gitudinal study has charted the economic
well-being of a nationally representative sam-
ple of American families each year since
1968, making it possible to test difFerent
causal models. It indicates that differences
between individuals in various psychological
characteristics, in the main, are the result of
past changes in economic status, not die cause
of subsequent improvement or deterioration
in economic status (Corcoran, Duncan, Gurin,
& Gurin, 1985). However, it should be em-
phasized that this study focuses primarily on
motivational factors, only one of several do-
mains of psychological functioning that might
influence one's vulnerability to poverty.
Questions about causal direction also are
salient in the research literature about eco-
nomic loss. Existing research demonstrates
that many of the negative psychological states
associated with job loss are true effects of job
loss rather than selective factors leading to job
loss (e.g., Kessler, House, & Turner, 1987).
Furthermore, in a number of studies report-
ing negative psychological effects, men lost
jobs because of plant and factory closings. In
such instances, the claim that personality fac-
tors played a systematic, causal role in eco-
nomic loss is untenable (Buss & Redbum,
1983; Kasl & Cobb, 1979). Taken together,
these data buttress the causal assumptions in
our analytic model, but it is still possible that
314 Child Development
poverty and economic loss are caused by psy-
chological factors not examined in existing
studies.
Emphasis on psychological distress does
not deny that ideational factors such as paren-
tal values and beliefs evolving out of the ex-
periences of poverty also may mediate the
link between poverty and parenting behavior
(Kohn, 1963; Ogbu, 1981). Power-assertive
discipline, for example, may stem partly from
parents' intention to teach functional compe-
tences (e.g., self-reliance, ability to manipu-
late people, and mistrust of people in author-
ity) thought to foster the child's survival in
environments marked by marginal conven-
tional economic resources and a vital under-
ground economy (Ogbu, 1981). It is likely that
ideational factors and psychological distress
in the parent serve to reinforce each other as
determinants of class-linked patterns of par-
enting and thus may best be seen as com-
plementary rather than mutually exclusive.
Parenting behavior that arises out of stress
may become legitimized or rationalized as a
value to reduce dissonance (Ho&nan, 1984),
and espousal of that value may, in tum, fur-
ther stabilize the parenting style.
In addition to the effects of economic
hardship on parenting, the analytic model
maps a specific pathway by which economic
adversity affects the child socioemotionally.
The work of Elder and his colleagues (Elder,
1979; Elder et al., 1984, 1985), together with
recent investigations of contemporary fami-
lies (Galambos & Silbereisen, 1987a, 1987b;
Lempers et al., 1989), provides compelling
evidence that children in families sustaining
economic decline suffer a variety of socio-
emotional problems as a result of negative
changes in parenting behavior.
We hypothesize that a similar media-
tional process operates within the context of
poverty. Severe economic loss narrows the
gap between the previously nondeprived and
the chronically poor in terms of material re-
sources and psychological distress. Conse-
quently, these two groups are likely to differ
from economically advantaged individuals in
similar ways along a number of dimensions. It
is for this reason that we believe it is legiti-
mate to integrate the research on poverty and
economic loss using psychological distress as
a unifying variable.
For two reasons, however, we make no
claim that negative parenting behavior is the
primary pathway through which poverty
undermines children's socioemotional func-
tioning. First, there is insufficient evidence to
support such a contention. Rarely have re-
searchers actually documented the degree to
which family socialization processes account
for socioemotional problems in poor children
though, to be sure, they have made these
links at the conceptual level. Second, poverty
is an extremely complex phenomenon that
differs from economic loss in important ways.
Chronic poverty is not a unitary variable or
distinct event, such as job or income loss, but
a conglomerate of stressful conditions and
events. It is a pervasive rather than bounded
crisis, distinguished partly by a high conta-
gion of stressors (Makosky, 1982; Masten,
Morison, Pellegrini, & Tellegen, in press; Ray
& McLoyd, 1986). More than economic loss,
especially if it is transitory, chronic poverty
severely constricts choices in virtually all do-
mains of life (e.g., choice of neighborhood,
school, educational and recreational activi-
ties), renders the person more subject to con-
trol by others (e.g., social workers), and in-
creases the probability that the child will be
viewed negatively and receive less positive
attention and more criticism from teachers
(Gouldner, 1978). These experiences, as well
as the egregious lack of employment opportu-
nities for poor black adolescents (Shapiro,
1981), may affect socioemotional develop-
ment adversely (Fumham, 1985; Wallace,
1974). There also may be effects due to grow-
ing up in a poor "^neighborhood (Jencks &
Mayer, in press), a particularly salient issue in
understanding economically deprived black
children because they frequently grow up in
poor, isolated, urban neighborhoods, whereas
this is rarely the case for poor white children
(Wilson, 1987).
It is beyond the scope of this article to
review these ecological issues, although we
touch on neighborhood characteristics as they
affect parenting behavior. The point we wish
to make is that the processes that mediate
negative child outcomes associated with
chronic poverty, compared to those associated
with economic loss, may be more complex,
less localized to the family setting, and more
likely to involve extrafamilial socialization
agents. Because of its pervasiveness, then, we
assume that chronic poverty indirectly in-
fluences children's socioemotional develop-
ment through altemate pathways and that
these pathways are more numerous than
those through which economic loss affects
children. In addition, chronic poverty proba-
bly is more likely than economic loss to have
a direct impact on the child because it is long-
standing and defines the child's immediate
environment, almost in its entirety, whereas

job and income loss are often transitory and
originate in the workplace external to the
child's immediate environment. Supporting
this idea is research indicating that chronic
stressful conditions such as poverty and pa-
rental punitiveness are more likely than
stressful life events to play a direct etiological
role in children's psychological impairment
(Gersten, Langner, Eisenberg, & Simcha-
Fagan, 1977).
This review is divided into five major
sections. In keeping with our analytic model,
we begin with a discussion of the dynamics of
poverty and economic decline among black
children and the stmctural forces that have
infiuenced these dynamics. This section sum-
marizes recent, significant advances in our
understanding of these issues and provides
a backdrop and anchor for the discussion
of socialization and socioemotional develop-
ment that follows. In the second section, at-
tention is given to the emotional states and
psychological functioning of parents who are
experiencing economic hardship. The envi-
ronmental stressors associated with economic
disadvantage, as well as the relation between
race and mental health, are discussed. En-
compassed in this section is research on
income loss, job loss, unemployment, and
poverty. This seemed reasonable because,
common to these subcategories of economic
hardship (which often overlap) is the fact that
income is insufficient to support either needs
or customary patterns of consumption, placing
adaptive demands of varying degrees of se-
verity on the individual and the family. The
third section of the article focuses on eco-
nomic and race differences in parenting be-
haviors and concludes that psychological dis-
tress partly explains these differences. We
also examine how the quality of father-mother
relations in the context of economic hardship
affects parental treatment of the child. In the
fourth section, evidence is reviewed that di-
rectly ties punitive, nonsupportive, and er-
ratic discipline with psychological distress in
parents and documents the effects of these
parenting behaviors on children's socioemo-
tional functioning. The linkages among par-
ents' emotional state, treatment of children,
and children's socioemotional functioning are
underscored further in a discussion of par-
ents' social networks. We suggest that through
the provision of social support and exercise
of child-rearing sanctions, parents' networks
ease emotional distress in parents, temper
harsh parental treatment, and in tum foster
positive socioemotional development in im-
poverished children. TTie fourth section is not
Vonnie C. McLoyd 315
organized according to the age or develop-
mental status of the child. Rather, it com-
bines, by content area, studies of children
representing a broad age span and emcom-
passes numerous child outcomes under the
rubric of "socioemotional functioning." Few
investigations have sought to determine if age
or developmental status is a determinant of
children's vulnerability to harsh, erratic disci-
pline or, in particular, if it modifies the direct
and indirect effects of economic hardship. In
those studies that have addressed these ques-
tions, age or developmental status does not
emerge as a consistent predictor (Elder et al.,
1979). Nonetheless, we suspect that further
research will confirm that the analytic model
presented here requires some modifications
to accommodate different developmental pe-
riods (e.g., influence of peers during adoles-
cence, adolescent employment). The final
section identifies major gaps in our knowl-
edge about the impact of economic hardship
on black families and children and offers sug-
gestions for future research.
The Dynamics of Poverty and
Economic Decline among Black
Children
The proportion of black children living in
poverty soared during the 1980s. Between
1979 and 1985, the rate of poverty for black
children 18 years and under increased from
36% to 41%, compared to an increase from
12% to 13% for white children during the
same period (Duncan, 1988). Even more
alarming than race differences in the poverty
rate in any particular year is the race disparity
in the number of children who experience
persistent poverty. Duncan and Rodgers
(1988) used longitiidinal data from the 1968-
1982 waves of the PSID to characterize pat-
tems of poverty among children who were
under the age of 4 in 1968 and for whom data
were available for each of the succeeding 14
years. They found that 24% of black children,
compared to six-tenths of 1% of non-black
children, were poor for at least 10 of the 15
years. Furthermore, 4.9% of black children
were poor the entire 15-year period, whereas
this was true for none of the non-black chil-
dren. In sum, black children accounted for
the total number of children who w^ere poor
all 15 years and for almost 90% of the children
who were poor during at least 10 of the 15
years. Fewer than one in seven (13%) black
children lived comfortably above the poverty
line all 15 years (family income at least 150%
of the poverty level), while over half (56%) of
all non-black children enjoyed this status.
316 Child Development
The persistence of poverty among black chil-
dren was strongly affected by geographic lo-
cation. Contrary to popular notion, black chil-
dren who lived in rural areas, as compared to
those who lived in urban areas, and black
children who lived in the South, as compared
to those who resided outside the South, spent
more years in poverty (Duncan, 1988).
Black children also are more subject to
drops in family income relative to need. Over
one-third (35%) of black children in the PSID
lived in households in which income relative
to needs fell by more than 50% at least once
between 1969 and 1979, compared to 26% of
white children. Black households were less
likely than white households to have ex-
pected the loss (4% vs. 7%) and were mark-
edly less likely to have savings to blunt its
impact (16% vs. 48%) (Duncan & Rodgers,
1988). Because they were not well off to be-
gin with, black children were more likely
than white children to fall into poverty follow-
ing events that reduced economic resources,
such as family breakups, cutbacks in work
hours of household members, and disability
of the household head (Duncan, 1986). The
extraordinarily high and increasing incidence
of economic hardship among black children is
the result of complex and interrelated factors,
including structural changes in the economy
that have resulted in increasingly high rates of
joblessness, low wages, family stmcture, and
institutional barriers.
Joblessness and structural changes in the
economy.Even in the best of times, the
official unemployment rate of black workers
typically is twice that of white workers.
Blacks' increased vulnerability to unemploy-
ment is attributable to several factors, includ-
ing lesser education, lesser skill training, less
job seniority, fewer transportable job skills,
and institutional barriers (Buss & Redbum,
1983). Moreover, black workers have been hit
especially hard by recent structural changes
in the economy: (a) Rates of job displacement
in the manufacturing sector are higher and
reemployment rates lower in precisely those
blue-collar occupations in which blacks are
overrepresented. Loss of higher-paying man-
ufacturing jobs as the economy shifts from
goods-producing to service-producing indus-
tries has forced substantial numbers of black
workers into much lower-paying trade or ser-
vice positions (James, 1985; Simms, 1987). {b)
The relocation of manufacturing employment
from central cities to outlying areas has been
more detrimental to blacks because they re-
side in central cities in disproportionate num-
bers (in 1980, 58% compared to 25% for the
rest of the population), (c) The transformation
of central cities from centers of production to
centers of administration has generated sharp
increases in white-collar employment and
thus higher educational requirements for em-
ployment, but blacks rely disproportionately
on blue-collar employment and average lower
levels of education than whites. Conversely,
virtually all of the recent growth in entry-
level jobs requiring lower levels of education
has occurred in the suburbs and nonmet-
ropolitan areas away from high concentrations
of poorly educated blacks (Fusfeld & Bates,
1984; Wilson, 1987). It comes as no surprise
that loss of employment and work hours
among adults has direct consequences for
children's economic well-being. The two
events resulting in the greatest net increase in
poverty among black children in the PSID
were fewer work hours of individuals in the
household other than the father or mother and
fewer work hours of male household heads
(Duncan & Rodgers, 1988).
Low wages.Large numbers of blacks
who reside in the inner cities and have low
levels of education work full time in low-
wage industries (e.g., retail, service) but eam
less than a poverty-level income. The low-
wage labor force is preserved by high rates of
unemployment, lack of union organization,
and large numbers ofjobs that are not covered
by "protective" legislation (e.g., minimum
wage) (Fusfeld & Bates, 1984; Halpem,
1987).
The past 2 decades have been marked by
substantial economic attrition among poor
and young families (Duncan, 1988). Black
families headed by persons 24 years old or
younger lost 47% of their real incomes be-
tween 1973 and 1986 (William T. Grant Com-
mission on Work, Family and Citizenship,
1988). This trend is due in part to the fact that
the minimum wage has been held at the same
level since January 1981, despite rising infia-
tion. A full-time minimum wage job today
pays only 75% of the poverty line for a femily
of three, compared to 103.6% in 1964 (Edel-
man, 1987). Being a minimum wage worker
and being poor are not synonymous, but the
likelihood of being poor is considerably
higher for minimum wage workers. In 1985,
fully one-third of minimum wage workers
^vere in families in which no other member
held a job, and 42% of all workers holding
minimum wage jobs were adult women
(Smith & Vavrichek, 1987).
Rising incidence of female-headed
households.Since 1960, the number of

black families headed by women has more
than tripled, primarily as a function of the in-
creased preveJence of out-of-wedlock births
(i.e., from 25% of all black births in 1960 to
55% in 1979) and a general decline in fertility
among married black women (Center for the
Study of Social Policy, 1986; Wilson, 1987).
There is a growing consensus that a major
cause of the rise in female-headed families
among blacks is the deteriorating economic
status of black men (Center for the Study of
Social Policy, 1986; Garfinkel & McLanahan,
1986; Staples, 1986; Wilson & Neckerman,
1986). Data clearly show that increases in the
percentage of black families headed by
women have been accompanied by parallel
increases in the percentage of black men out
of the labor force, unemployed, or whose
earnings are below the poverty line (Center
for the Study of Social Policy, 1986). This re-
lation is in keeping with data indicating that
entry into marriage is less likely and marital
dissolution more likely if the husband is un-
employed or poor than if the husband is em-
ployed or more affluent (Bishop, 1977; Fur-
stenberg, 1976; William T. Grant Commission
on Work, Family and Citizenship, 1988).
Because most recent retrenchments have
been in the manufacturing sector, where male
workers predominate, rather than in the ser-
vice sector, where women are more likely to
be employed, black men have been more
negatively affected than black women by the
stmctural changes in the economy mentioned
above (Collins, 1986). Their labor force par-
ticipation rate dropped from 84% in 1940 to
67% in 1980, compared to a drop from 82% to
76% for white men during the same period. It
is among male youth and prime-age men (i.e.,
those most likely to have dependent children)
that the race differences in labor force trends
are most pronounced (Wilson & Neckerman,
1986). A similar trend is observed when the
earnings of black men are fracked over time.
The percentage of black males between the
ages of 20 and 24 with earnings at or above
the three-person poverty line decreased from
54% in 1973 to 24% in 1986 (William T. Grant
Foundation Commission on Work, Family
and Citizenship, 1988). Other evidence of the
declining economic status of black men has
been reported by Allen and Farley (1986).
According to these researchers, between 1969
and 1983 the median income of black male
youth (15 to 24 years) as a percent of whites'
fell from 91% to 61%. For prime-age black
men (25 to 34 years), it fell from 68% to 65%.
These trends, along with high black male
mortality and incarceration rates, have re-
Vonnie C. McLoyd 317
sulted in a shrinking pool of marriageable
black men, that is, those who are in a position
to support a family (Wilson & Neckerman,
1986). Note that these trends do not mean that
black women are in a superior labor market
position relative to black men. As compared
to black men, they have less difficulty finding
stable work but gamer much lower wages
(Collins, 1986).
Currently, about 45% of all black chil-
dren live in female-headed households. Of
these children, 70% are poor, compared to
24% of black children who live in two-parent
families (Center for the Study of Social Policy,
1986). Two primary events result in female-
headed household, namely, births to unmar-
ried women and marital dissolution, and both
are more common among blacks than whites.
Recent data indicate that births to unmarried
women account for 41% of all black house-
holds headed by women, while divorce and
separation account for another 51% (Staples,
1986). Spells of childhood poverty that be-
gin at birth, relatively more common among
blacks than whites, are substantially longer
than spells of poverty that begin when
families change from male- to female-headed.
Data also indicate that the longer a person has
been poor, the less likely it is that he or she
will escape poverty (Bane & EUwood, 1986).
Black children are further disadvantaged
because the economic consequences ofchange
from male- to female-headship are more deva-
stating for them than for white children. In
the PSID, divorce or separation was the most
frequent family event precipitating income-
to-need declines by more than 50%, and these
events pushed proportionately more black
children than white children into poverty
(Duncan & Rodgers, 1988). Furthermore,
black children spend more time than white
children in a single-parent femily before mak-
ing the transition to a two-parent family and
are much more likely than white children to
remain in a single-parent family for the dura-
tion of childhood (Duncan & Rodgers, 1987).
All of these factors contribute to the enor-
mous race differences in the persistence of
poverty mentioned earlier.
However, even when seen as deriving
from the declining economic fortunes of black
men, racial differences in family structure
clearly are not the sole factor responsible for
the increased prevalence of poverty among
black children. The expected prevalence of
poverty among black children living in two-
parent families throughout childhood is
roughly the same as the expected prevalence
318 Child Development
of poverty among white children who spend
their entire childhood living in single-parent
famihes (3.0 years vs. 3.2 years) (Duncan &
Rodgers, 1987). Institutional barriers deriving
directly from past or present racial discrimina-
tion (e.g., housing pattems in relation to the
location of jobs, restricted educational and
employment opportunities) undoubtedly are
implicated in this racial disparity (Wilson,
1987). Poverty among blacks, unlike that
among whites, is conjoined to and compli-
cated by racism. Consequently, the problems
of poor blacks probably cannot be solved in
the same way as the problems of impover-
ished whites (Washington, 1988a).
We now tum to a discussion of the effects
of economic hardship on the mental health
and marital relations of adults. Attention is
given to race, social class, and a range of per-
sonal and social factors that temper and ac-
centuate these effects. As suggested in our
analytic model, these psychosocial processes
have important implications for how parents
treat their children.
The Psychological and Emotional
States of Parents Experiencing
Economic Hardship
Adults who are poor have more mental
health problems than their economically ad-
vantaged counterparts. An inverse relation
between socioeconomic status and various
forms of psychological distress and mental
disorder has been reported by several re-
searchers (Liem & Liem, 1978; McLoyd &
Wilson, in press; Neff & Husaini, 1980). For
example, McAdoo (1986) found perceived
psychological distress to be significantly
higher among single black women with lower
incomes, compared to those with higher in-
comes. Liem and Liem (1978) have argued
that this relation reflects the complex interac-
tion between class position and at least three
facets of psychiatric impairment, namely,
etiology, maintenance, and treatment.
We focus here on etiology. Among the
etiological factors responsible for the eleva-
tion of mental health problems among the
poor is an overrepresentation in lower-class
life of a broad range of frustration-producing
life events and chronic conditions outside
personal control (Liem & Liem, 1978). Indi-
viduals who are poor are confronted with an
unremitting succession of negative life events
(e.g., eviction, physical illness, criminal as-
sault) in the context of chronically stressful,
ongoing life conditions such as inadequate
housing and dangerous neighborhoods that
together increase the exigencies of day-to-day
existence. Because of limited financial re-
sources, negative life events often precipitate
additional crises such that stressors are highly
contagious (Makosky, 1982). Increased efforts
to generate income or reduce family expendi-
tures are positively associated with economic
strain and psychological distress among poor
single mothers (McLoyd & Wilson, in press).
Psychological impairment is more severe
when catastrophic events are not under the
control of the individual (Liem & Liem,
1978). Furthermore, ongoing stressful condi-
tions associated with poverty such as inade-
quate housing and shortfalls of money are
more debilitating than acute crises and nega-
tive events (Belle, 1984; Brown, Bhrolchain,
& Harris, 1975; Makosky, 1982). Consistent
with this conclusion, Dressier (1985) found
that chronic economic stress (e.g., difficulty
paying bills, worrying about money, not hav-
ing enough money for health care) was the
strongest predictor of depression among
blacks living in randomly selected house-
holds. In some studies, after chronic stressors
are controlled, the efifects of life events on
psychological distress are diminished to bor-
derline significance (Dressier, 1985; Gersten
et al., 1977; Pearlin, Lieberman, Menaghan,
& Mullan, 1981).
Even though economic loss does not
necessarily push a worker and his or her fam-
ily into poverty, it can trigger a range of un-
welcomed changes and, in tum, precipitate
psychological distress. It may leave the in-
dividua] bereft of a sense of identity and
purpose, social contacts, and a central activ-
ity around which to structure time (Jahoda,
1982). In addition, job and income loss typi-
cally deprive individuals and their families of
material support. To compensate, families
may reduce consumption, apply for loans or
public assistance, sell possessions, and with-
draw savings to pay bills. Other stressors that
may emerge in the wake of economic loss
include forced relocation, entry of other fam-
ily members into the labor market, and un-
wanted changes in marital and family rela-
tions (Buss & Redbum, 1983; Elder, 1974; El-
der, Conger, & Foster, 1989; McLoyd, 1989).
Not surprisingly, adaptations of this kind are
more frequent as the level of economic pres-
sure increases (Elder et al., 1989).
Many studies indicate that both black
and white adults experiencing job loss or se-
vere income loss, as compared to individuals
who are employed or whose income loss is
less severe, are more depressed, anxious, and

hostile and have elevated feelings of victim-
ization and dissatisfaction with themselves
and tlieir lives. They consume more alcohol,
have more somatic complaints and eating and
sleeping problems, and are at higher risk of
neurosis, psychoticism, and suicide (Buss &
Redbum, 1983; Gary, 1985; Holahan, Betak,
Spearly, & Chance, 1983; James, LaCroix,
Heinbaum, & Strogatz, 1984; Kasl & Cobb,
1979; Liem, 1983; Theorell, Lind, &
Floderus, 1975). Pessimism about life in-
creases as income loss increases (Galambos &
Silbereisen, 1987a), and the more substantial
the adaptations to make ends meet, the higher
the level of psychological distress (Elder et
al.,.1989). Expectancy of economic hardship is
associated with poor mental health, although
the causal nature of this relation is unclear.
Black men who anticipate failure in the role
of primary breadwinner, father, and husband,
as well those who worry about losing a job,
have more psychological and physiological
problems than black men who are more san-
guine about their future prospects (Bowman,
1988; James et al., 1984).
Certain demographic factors exacerbate
the psychological difficulties resulting from
unemployment. Unemployed heads of house-
holds with dependent children, compared to
those without dependents, report more emo-
tional distress, probably because financial
strain and feelings of failure are more acute.
Working-class men have been found to be
more vulnerable than middle-class men to the
negative effects of job loss. This is probably
because they have fewer financial assets, ex-
perience longer periods of unemployment,
and are more likely to define job loss as a
crisis of either identity or economic survival
(Buss & Redbum, 1983; Cohn, 1978).
In general, the findings from studies
comparing unemployment and employed in-
dividuals are in accord with those reported in
aggregate studies, that is, studies examining
the relation between the status of an economy
(e.g., unemployment rate, inflation rate) and
the mental health of the population it sup-
ports (Dooley & Catalano, 1980). For ex-
ample, fluctuations in unemployment rates
have been linked to indices of psychological
distress (e.g., admissions to psychiatric hospi-
tals) (Dooley & Catalano, 1980; Horwitz,
1984). As noted previously, recent research
has demonstrated cogently that these are true
effects and not simply selective factors that
lead to job loss (Dew, Bromet, & Schulberg,
1987; Kessler, House, & Tumer, 1987). Not
only has unemployment been shown to be
directly responsible for increasing stress
Vonnie C. McLoyd 319
symptoms, but reemployment has been dem-
onstrated to have health-promoting, restora-
tive effects on fathers (Liem, 1983). Collec-
tively, these studies present strong evidence
that economic decline, like poverty, can ad-
versely affect mental and physical well-being.
As suggested in our model, economic hard-
ship and the psychological distress it engen-
ders have consequences for the quality and
maintenance of the marital bond. We tum to
these issues in the following section.
Economic hardship, marital bonds, and
mental health.The links among economic
hardship, marital bonds, and mental health
are complex. Economic hardship promotes
marital dissolution and deters marriage
among couples who have children and those
who do not (Bishop, 1977; Furstenberg,
1976). Difficult choices about the expenditure
of inadequate sums of money can fuel spousal
criticism and confiict. Because it lessens joint
and amicable problem solving, emotional dis-
tress stemming from economic difficulty can
contribute substantially to a growing wedge
between spouses. A circular process may be
set in motion in which conflict over adapta-
tion strategies diminishes expressions of love
and respect, which in tum lessens joint prob-
lem solving, leading to more conflict (Elder,
1974). In contexts where reduced family in-
come is due mainly to the father's loss of earn-
ings, mothers often gain in decision-making
power. This change is highly predictive of
marifed strain and low family integration (El-
der, 1974; Silbereisen, Walper, & Albrecht, in
press). The prospects of marital conflict and
disintegration under the pressures created by
economic loss also are heightened if the mar-
riage was weak and unsatisfying prior to the
economic crisis (Moen, Kain, & Elder, 1983)
(for a fuller discussion of the effects of eco-
nomic hardship on marital relations, see Ray
& McLoyd, 1986).
Just as it can contribute to marital dis-
cord, poor mental health may be a conse-
quence of the dissolution and absence of
marital bonds. Depression, psychosomatic
problems, and drug abuse are more common
in divorced adults than nondivorced adults
(Hetherington, Stanley-Hagan, & Anderson,
1989). Whether it is a consequence of divorce
or the failure to marry, single parenthood is a
risk factor. Single mothers are at greater risk
of anxiety, depression, and healtli problems
than other marital status groups, and this risk
is intensified if they are poor and live alone
with their children (Guttentag, Salasin, &
Belle, 1980). The inverse relation between
socioeconomic status and various forms of
320 Child Development
psychological distress is particularly strong
among single mothers (Belle, 1984; McAdoo,
1986; Pearlin & Johnson, 1977)a finding of
special significance given the large propor-
tion of black children living in female-headed
households. Some of this distress is rooted in
the burdens and responsibilities of solo par-
enting, as is evidenced by the fact that the
younger the child and the greater the number
of children in the households the greater is
the association between marital status and
mental health problems (Pearlin & Johnson,
1977).
Adding to their plight is the fact that poor
single mothers are more socially isolated and
generally experience their interaction with
the public welfare system as demeaning and
dehumanizing (Goodban, 1985; Marshall,
1982; Pearlin & Johnson, 1977). In addition,
lower-class women are more likely to expe-
rience the illness or death of children, the
imprisonment of husbands, and privation
and major losses in childhood that may make
coping with new losses even more difficult
(Belle, 1984; Brown et al., 1975; Reese, 1982;
Wortman, 1981). Even when income is con-
trolled, families headed by single mothers are
more likely than two-parent, "male-headed"
families to experience stressful life events
such as changes in income, job, residence,
and household composition, and, for those in
the labor force, unemployment (McLanahan,
1983; Weinraub & Wolf, 1983). Taken to-
gether, these findings suggest that the co-
existence and co-occurence of difficult life
circumstances and events associated with
poverty exact an extraordinarily high toll on
mental health. As Paarlin and Johnson (1977)
succinctly put it, "the combination most pro-
ductive of psychological distress is to be
simultaneously single, isolated, exposed to
burdensome parental obligations andmost
serious of allpoor" (p. 714). Along similar
lines. Tucker (1978) found that being single,
poor, young, and black was the combination
most productive of dissatisfied parenting and
lack of parental fulfillment.
Thus, increased psychological distress is
one way by which parents' marital circum-
stances can impinge on parenting in econom-
ically deprived families. In contexts where
marital discord flourishes or where there is no
marital partner to provide support, psycholog-
ical distress is high, which in tum can under-
mine the quality of parenting. Mothers as-
sume the role of custodial parent in all but a
small minority of cases in which marital ties
are severed or fail to be established, making
their mental health of particular signiflcance
to children's socialization and development
(Blechman, 1982; McLoyd & Wilson, in
press). Marital relations also are a major deter-
minant of how father-son relations and pater-
nal treatment of the child change in response
to economic loss. These issues are discussed
later.
Economic hardship and increased vul-
nerability to other stressors.In addition to
exposing the individual to more acute and
chronic stressors, poverty weakens the indi-
vidual's ability to cope with new problems
and difficulties, which consequently have
more debilitating effects. Individuals who are
poor are more likely than higher-status per-
sons to suffer mental health problems follow-
ing negative life events, a conclusion based
on the fact that the positive relation between
life-change scores and impairment is stron-
gest in the lower class. This relation is even
stronger when events outside the control of the
individual are analyzed separately (Kessler
& Cleary, 1980; Liem & Liem, 1978). Dif-
ferences in the occurrence of stressful life
events only partially account for the link be-
tween social class and psychological distress,
and this too has prompted questions about the
existence of greater responsiveness or vul-
nerability to stress among lower-class persons
(Tumer & Noh, 1983). Social class differences
in responsiveness to stress may stem from dif-
ferences in social and economic resources.
They also may be due to the excessive sever-
ity and chronicity of stressors in the lives of
poor people, combined with the high fre-
quency of negative life events over long pe-
riods of timefactors not always captured by
stressful life event inventories that typically
ask only about the occurrence of events
within the last 12 months. The rapid succes-
sion of negative life events leaves little time
for recuperation after each occurrence (Belle,
1984), and, over time, these events in con-
junction with stressful chronic conditions
grind away and deplete emotional reserves. A
similar argument has been made by Myers
and King (1983). They suggest that the con-
fluence of racism and the stressors resulting
from chronic urban poverty leads poor blacks
to function at a higher basal stress level than
the norm. That is, it primes individuals physi-
ologically and psychologically to perceive a
wider range of stimuli as stressful (Myers &
King, 1983).
Like people living in poverty, individ-
uals who have suffered economic loss have
been found to be vulnerable to the negative
impact of other life events. Indeed, this in-
creased vulnerability is one of the mecha-

nisms by which economic loss adversely af-
fects psychological and physical well-being.
Financial strain is the other pathway by
which job loss influences well-being. When
financial strain is controlled, unemployed
workers who have not experienced some
other stressful event in the previous year have
been reported to be in no worse health than
the stably employed (Kessler, Tumer, &
House, 1987).
Race and mental health.Vulnerability
to stress following negative life events is re-
ported to be higher among blacks than whites
(Neff, 1984, 1985). Consistent with this pat-
tem, black males, compared to white males,
suffer more impairment for longer periods of
time (more health problems, elevated feelings
of physical weakness, victimization, and de-
pression) following loss of employment. They
also report more family problems than white
males well after losing their jobs (Buss &
Redbum, 1983). The factors responsible for
these race differences are not well under-
stood, but might involve differences in actual
and perceived prospects of finding new em-
ployment, differences in financial assets that
cushion the financial impact of unemploy-
ment, as well as increased vulnerability. It
will be recalled that black families in the
PSID that experienced a major drop in in-
come relative to need were much less likely
than white families to have savings to blunt
its impact (Duncan, 1988).
Controlling for social class generally at-
tenuates, but does not eliminate race differ-
ences in psychological distress (Neff, 1984),
suggesting that there may be true effects of
race on psychological distress. This is the
conclusion drawn by Kessler and Neighbors
(1986) on the bases of analyses of eight differ-
ent surveys encompassing more than 22,000
black and white respondents. The indicators
of psychological distress in the surveys were
depression and somatic complaints associated
with anxiety and depression. Race differences
in distress were consistently and markedly
greater among individuals with low incomes
compared to those with higher ones. More-
over, these researchers found that the tme ef-
fect of race is suppressed, and the true effect
of social class is magnified, in models that fail
to take the interaction of race and social class
into consideration. Blacks probably are more
distressed than whites at low levels of income
because their caste-like inferiorized status
thwarts mobility aspirations and results in
greater exposure to chronic, ongoing stress-
ors (Dowhrenwend & Dowhrenwend, 1969;
Pierce, 1975; Powell, 1982) and higher levels
Vonnie C. McLoyd 321
of resource deprivation (Kessler & Neighbors,
1986; Ogbu, 1978). This combination of fac-
tors puts lower-class black parents, and conse-
quently their children, at high risk for mental
health problems.
Protective and stress-buffering factors.
As is clear from the preceding sections, con-
siderable variation exists in the extent to
which individuals succumb to the debilitating
effects of stress brought on by economic hard-
ship. Both social and individual factors have
been found to contribute to this variation. So-
cial and financial support buffer feelings of
psychological distress among both black and
white unemployed adults (Barbarin, in press;
Gore, 1978; BCasl & Cobb, 1979; Kessler,
House, & Tumer, 1987; Kessler, Tumer, &
House, 1988) and feelings of depression in
both black and white mothers on welfare
(Colletta & Lee, 1983; Zur-Szpiro & Longfel-
low, 1982). Lest its defensive potency be
overestimated, it is important to note that so-
cial support is not so robust a variable that it
uniformly reduces psychological distress. For
example, it is far less effective in buffering the
psychological distress associated with chronic
economic stressors than that induced by nega-
tive life events, especially among young black
women (Dressier, 1985).
Another potent protective factor consists
of the individual's attributional biases. Men
who do not hold themselves responsible for
the loss of income or a job (Buss & Redbum,
1983; Cohn, 1978; Kasl & Cobb, 1979) and
poor black women who do not blame them-
selves for being on welfare (Goodban, 1985)
tend to have fewer psychological and physical
health problems than those who blame them-
selves for their economic difficulties. Simi-
larly, unemployed blacks who more fre-
quently perceive themselves to be victims of
racial discrimination report higher levels of
psychological well-being than unemployed
blacks whose perceived experience with ra-
cial discrimination is lower. Religiosity also is
associated with lower distress among unem-
ployed blacks (Barbarin, in press). Job and se-
vere income loss pose greater risk to the men-
tal health of parents, and consequently the
child, when the parent defines job or income
loss as a negative crisis-producing event (Bar-
barin, in press; Horwitz, 1984; Pemicci
& Targ, 1988), is prone to self-denigration
(Kessler et al., 1988), and has rigid, traditional
conjugal and family role ideologies that make
role changes difficult to implement and ac-
cept (Komarovsky, 1940; Pow^ell & DriscoU,
1973; Voydanoff, 1983).
322 Child Development
Poverty and economic loss thus increase
the risk of emotional distress in adults and
render them more vulnerable to the debilitat-
ing effects of negative life events. Distress as-
sociated with economic hardship is intensi-
fied if the adult is raising children alone,
has dependent children, is black, socially
isolated, or blames himself or herself for the
economic difficulty.
The next section focuses on differences
in the child-rearing practices of economically
disadvantaged versus advantaged adults and
discusses father-child relations as they are in-
fiuenced by father-mother relations. Attention
also is given to race differences in parenting
behavior and the economic antecedents and
correlates of child abuse. Consistent with our
model, we conclude that psychological dis-
tress, demonstrated to be higher among adults
experiencing economic hardship than those
who are not, and higher among black adults
(especially lower class) than white adults, par-
tially accounts for economic and race differ-
ences in child rearing, as well as the link be-
tween economic stress and child abuse.
The Influence of Economic Hardship
on Parent-Child Interaction and
Relations
Parenting in the context of poverty ver-
sus the context of affluence.Because they
are more emotionally distressed than their ad-
vantaged counterparts, it is not surprising that
the capacity of poor parents for supportive,
sensitive, and involved parenting is dimin-
ished. Numerous studies of both black and
white adults, employing both interview and
observational methods, report that mothers
who are poor, as compared to their advan-
taged counterparts, are more likely to use
power-assertive techniques in disciplinary
encounters and are generally less supportive
of their children. They value obedience more,
are less likely to use reasoning, and more
likely to use physical punishment as a means
of disciplining and controlling the child.
Lower-class parents are more likely to issue
commands without explanation, less likely to
consult the child about his or her wishes, and
less likely to reward the child verbally for be-
having in desirable ways. Poverty also has
been associated with diminished expression
of affection and lesser responsiveness to the
socioemotional needs explicitly expressed by
the child (Conger, McCarty, Yang, Lahey, &
Kropp, 1984; Gecas, 1979; Hess, 1970; Kamii
& Radin, 1967; Kriesberg, 1970; Langner,
Herson, Greene, Jameson, & Goff, 1970; Pe-
terson & Peters, 1985; Portes, Dunham, &
Williams, 1986; Wilson, 1974). McLoyd
(1988) found that single economically disad-
vantaged mothers who reported higher levels
of economic deprivation hit and scolded their
children more frequently.
Differences in the degree of emotional
distress experienced by poor versus nonpoor
parents as a result of varying levels of envi-
ronmental stress probably contribute to these
social class effects. Rewarding, explaining,
consulting, and negotiating with the child re-
quire patience and concentrationqualities
typically in short supply when parents feel
harassed and overburdened. Even when un-
toward events occur in the context of a favor-
able economic situation, they can have a
dampening effect on parent-child interaction.
In one study of middle-class, well-educated
mothers' interactions with their preschoolers,
for example, Weinraub and Wolf (1983) found
that mothers who experienced more sfressful
life events were less nurturant toward their
children and, in the case of single mothers,
were less at ease, less spontaneous, and less
responsive to their children's communica-
tions. Similarly, the occurrence of undesirable
life events was found by Gersten et al. (1977)
to correlate positively with affectively distant,
restrictive, and punitive parenting. Even
ephemeral, relatively minor hassles produce
detectable changes in matemal behavior. Pat-
terson's (1988) observations of mother-child
dyads over the course of several days indicate
that day-to-day fiuctuations in mothers' ten-
dency to initiate and continue an aversive
exchange with their children were system-
atically related to the daily frequency of has-
sles or crises the niother experienced. Even
more compelling is a growing body of evi-
dence directly linking parents' emotional
states to their parenting behavior. We con-
sider this evidence later.
Observational data on poor fathers' in-
teractions with their children are extremely
limited; there are virtually no studies of socio-
economic differences in father-child interac-
tion that include poor (lower-class) fathers.
Some ethnographic studies suggest that the
affective quality of poor fathers' interaction
with their children depends on the child's age
and whether the father and child live in the
same household. Poor fathers have been re-
ported to be highly indulgent with their in-
fants but less involved and affectionate to-
ward older children (Coles, 1971; Looff,
1971). Liebow (1967) concluded, on the basis
of one observational study, that poor black
fathers who lived with their own children
were less affectionate and attentive toward

their children than nonresident fathers. How-
ever, belief in the necessity and propriety of
physical punishment was common among
both. Keeping the child "in line" and out of
trouble are seen by poor black residential
fathers as major parenting responsibilities,
but whether these goals are related to the use
of particular child-rearing practices is un-
known (Robinson, Bailey, & Smith, 1985).
The reasons for the differences in how resi-
dent and nonresident fathers treat their chil-
dren may be related to the heavy psychologi-
cal burden bome by poor resident fathers. In
Liebow's view, the emotional distress that
poverty engenders, combined with feelings of
guilt because of failure in the male provider
role, undermines patemal expressiveness.
When living with his children, the poor
father, on the one hand, publicly and pri-
vately affirms his commitment to the duties
and responsibilities of fatherhood but, on the
other hand, sharpens his sense of failure as
provider. To lessen the damage to his self-
esteem, the father distances himself from the
child psychologically. This may also explain
why poor resident fethers were more affec-
tionate toward other men's children than to-
ward their own. Nonresident poor fathers can
afford to be solicitous and affectionate toward
their children because contact is intermittent
and, more importantly, according to Liebow,
because they are less guilt-riddenthere is
no longer the burdensome social obligation to
be the child's primary provider. Liebow also
observed a connection between mother-father
relations and the relationships of these fathers
with their children. In support of our analytic
model, he concluded that the frequency and
affective quality of contact between poor non-
resident fathers and their children depend
more on their relationships with the mothers
of the children than on their relationships
with the children themselves (Liebow, 1967).
Among both the poor and more affluent,
and among both blacks and whites, strains
in the father-child relationship are greater
among adolescent children than among youn-
ger children. In addition, studies of blacks, as
well as studies of racially diverse samples,
show increases in impairment of the father-
child relationship and increases in negative
attitudes toward the father as socioeconomic
status declines (Gibbs, 1985; Langner et al.,
1970). Nevertheless, the spectrum of father-
child relationships among the poor is broad,
ranging from no father-child contact at all to
positive, satisfying, ongoing relations in the
context of an intact family (Furstenberg, 1976;
Furstenberg, Brooks-Gunn, & Morgan, 1987;
Vonnie C. McLoyd 323
Liebow, 1967; Ray & McLoyd, 1986; Schulz,
1968).
Parenting in the context of econom,ic de-
cline versus the context of economic stabil-
ity.Some of the differences in child-rearing
practices between poor and more affluent
parents parallel differences found between
employed and unemployed parents. Jobless
black parents are less likely than employed
parents to believe that reasoning is the best
way to control children (Kriesberg, 1970).
Among black extended families in which un-
employment is common, grandparents have
been reported to value quick and decisive
physical punishment because family welfare
is perennially at stake and the effects of mis-
behavior of the child reverberate throughout
the entire extended family network (Martin &
Martin, 1978). More recently, parents who
have experienced job loss or severe income
loss, as compared to employed parents or par-
ents whose income loss is less severe, have
been found to be less nurturant and more
punitive and inconsistent in their interactions
with their children (Elder et al., 1985;
Goldsmith & Radin, 1987; Lempers et al.,
1989).
In some families suffering hardship dur-
ing the Great Depression, a vicious cycle was
observed in which the harshness of the father
was met with growing resentment and resis-
tance from the child, especially if the child
had replaced (or shared with the mother) the
father's breadwinner role. In tum, the father
became even more arbitrary and controlling
(Bakke, 1940). Under these circumstances,
economic loss oflen enhanced the affective
status of the mother relative to the father,
reduced the attractiveness of the father to
children as a role model, companion, and
confidant (especially among boys), and in-
creased the tendency of children to identify
with and seek the companionship of nonfa-
milial adults (Elder, 1974).
As we intimated earlier, however, two
fectors increased the likelihood of deteriora-
tion in father-child relations following eco-
nomic loss, namely, strained, conflict-ridden,
or affectively distant father-child relations
prior to the setback and strained marital re-
lations (Komarovsky, 1940). The mother's
prominence in the child's life made it possi-
ble for her to shape the child's behavior and
attitude toward the father. If she lost respect
for the husband, held him in contempt, and
blamed him for the disruption in their lives,
she was unlikely to present a sympathetic in-
terpretation of the father's situation to the
324 Child Development
child or to encourage child behaviors that ac-
knowledged the father's authority (Elder,
1974; Ginsburg, 1942). Within this context,
sons, in particular, were likely to adopt an ir-
reverent attitude toward the father, setting the
stage for father-child confiict. Moreover, the
mother's behavior toward the father con-
strained the father's response to the son. If
she was distant and disapproving of the
father, he tended to be more hostile, erratic,
or indifferent toward the son than if the
marital bond was secure and supportive (El-
der, 1979). It is likely that fathers were dis-
placing their anger toward the mother to the
child. A more recent investigation of white
rural middle-class families experiencing eco-
nomic hardship bears this out (Elder et al.,
1989). Adaptations to hardship fueled men's
irritability and hostility toward their wives
and this, in tum, led to hostility toward the
child. The strain of adaptations had no direct
impact on the father's affect toward the son.
Researchers studying other issues have dis-
cussed the interrelatedness of conjugal and
parental relations. In general, harmonious
marital relations co-vary with sensitive, nur-
turant parent-child interactions, whereas dis-
sension in the parent dyad is associated with
conflictual parent-child relations (Herrenkohl
& Herrenkohl, 1981).
Recent research findings based on self-
reports are peculiarly inconsistent. Today's
middle-class and working-class parents rarely
report deterioration of their relationships with
their children following job loss when di-
rectly asked (Perrucci & Targ, 1988; Perrucci,
Targ, Perrucci, & Targ, 1987; Rayman &
Bluestone, cited in Cunningham, 1983;
Thomas, McCabe, & Berry, 1980). In fact,
they are as likely (or more likely) to report
improvement in relations with the child fol-
lowing job loss. These flndings must be re-
garded as tenuous, though, because many of
the studies do not include comparisons with
continuously employed workers. In contrast
to these more benign reports from parents,
evidence of negative effects has been found
when unemployed and reemployed groups
are compared, and estimates of parent-child
conflict are based on reports from children
rather than parents. In a recent investigation
by Flanagan (in press), adolescents whose
parents were currently unemployed because
of job loss reported more conflict with their
parents than those whose parents lost jobs
and found new employment. Other research-
ers have found no relation between the
father's employment status and children's re-
ports of family problems (Buss & Redbum,
1983), but these reports may not refiect the
quality of parent-child relationships per se
(for a fuller discussion of this issue, see
McLoyd, 1989).
In black families, the effects of unem-
ployment on the child's attitude toward the
father seem to differ as a function of social
class, and this difference may be attributable
to differences in causal attribution. Heiss
(1975) reported that, in black lower-class
families, patemal unemployment had no ef-
fect on the child's attitudes toward the father,
whereas in middle-class families, patemal un-
employment undermined the child's esteem
for the father. Perhaps unemployed fathers
are more likely to be taken for granted in
lower-status groups, the father neither gaining
nor losing admiration because unemployment
is so commonplace in this social stratum. Its
prevalence also may reinforce the belief that
the father's employment difficulties are due to
race and class discrimination rather than to
enduring personal inadequacies (Heiss, 1975;
Schwartz & Henderson, 1964). It cannot be
determined from Heiss's study whether dif-
ferences in causal attributions or differences
in fathers' reactions to unemployment (or
other factors) account for the differential im-
pact of unemployment on children's attitudes
toward their fathers. Until Heiss's findings are
replicated, they should be interpreted cau-
tiously. As noted earlier, unemployment is as-
sociated with higher levels of psychological
distress in working-class men compared to
middle-class men (Buss & Redbum, 1983).
On this basis, unemployment would be ex-
pected to result in greater rather than less im-
pairment of father-child relations in lower-
status families.
Most of the investigations reviewed in
this section have contrasted economic con-
texts in order to identify the changes that
economic hardship produces in parenting. A
different approach to studying the relation
between parenting and economic contexts in-
volves identifying a particular pattem of par-
enting behavior and documenting the con-
texts conducive to it. Essentially, this is the
approach taken by researchers who study
child abuse, the focus of the next section.
Child abuse: An extreme form of puni-
tive parenting.Child abuse represents an
extreme form of punitive parenting that oc-
curs more frequently in families experiencing
economic decline than in families with stable
resources (Garbarino, 1976; Parke & Collmer,
1975). Analyzing data over a 30-month pe-
riod, Steinberg, Catalano, and Dooley (1981)
found that increases in child abuse were pre-

ceded by periods of high job loss. In a study
conducted by Straus, Gelles, and Steinmetz
(1980), the rate of child abuse among fathers
employed part time was almost twice is high
as the rate for fathers employed full time.
PaternfJ unemployment and economic
loss can lead to child abuse through a number
of pathways. Because less money is available,
unemployed parents are not in a good posi-
tion to "bribe" their children into following
orders or wishes with tangible goods, to with-
hold goods and activities as a means of pun-
ishment, or to offer desirable substitutes for
undesirable activities (Bakke, 1940; Cap-
lovitz, 1979; Komarovsky, 1940). These cir-
cumstances, combined with frustration and
depletion of emotional resources brought on
by financial strain, may set the stage for un-
employed parents to become physically abu-
sive. Other factors conducive to child abuse
in the context of economic loss include (a)
fathers' increased responsibilities for the pri-
mary care and discipline of their children (Ra-
din & Goldsmith, 1989), resulting in greater
awareness of children's negative attributes
and a less favorable perception of them (John-
son & Abramovitch, 1985); (b) a heightened
need among these fathers to exercise power
because of a real or perceived status loss; and
(c) as suggested earlier, an increase in marital
disputes and displacement of anger onto the
child, especially if the child forms a coalition
with the mother (Herrenkohl, Herrenkohl, &
Egolf, 1983; Parke & Collmer, 1975). During
the Depression, children whose fathers lost
the greatest amount of income were most
likely to perceive the mother as someone to
rely on and most likely to align themselves
with the mother when the parents quarreled
(Elder, 1974).
Child abuse is reported to be more preva-
lent among the poor as well (e.g., Daniel,
Hampton, & Newberger, 1983; Garbarino,
1976), and several life conditions and circum-
stances associated with poverty appear to ex-
plain this. In their study of black families, for
instance, Daniel et al. (1983) found that abu-
sive mothers not only were more likely than
nonabusive mothers to be very poor but suf-
fered more losses due to recent deaths in their
femilies, more recent changes in their life
situations, and generally more negative fam-
ily stress. Even within poor abusive families,
material deprivation is associated with sever-
ity of maltreatment (Horowitz & Wolock,
1985).
Some have claimed that the relation be-
tween child abuse and social class is spurious
owing to bias in detection and in the records
Vonnie C. McLoyd 325
of child welfare agencies typically used to es-
timate the occurrence of child abuse. It is as-
serted that poor people's behavior is more
open to scrutiny (e.g., the poor have more
contact with public agencies and are less
likely to live in isolated single-family dwell-
ings), making detection of child abuse more
likely among them than among more affluent
individuals. Known cases of child abuse, it
is argued, are more likely to be reported to
agencies and agencies are more likely to in-
tervene if the family is poor (Wright, 1982).
While it is true that child abuse is not con-
fined to people who are poor, there are no
solid empirical data clarifying the extent to
which these biases account for the overrep-
resentation of the poor among reported cases
of abuse (Horowitz & Wolock, 1985; Pelton,
1978). What is clear, though, is a reliable bias
in labeling child abuse depending on the so-
cioeconomic background of the child. Using
an experimental design, Turbett and O'Toole
(cited in Gelles, 1980) presented physicians
with a mock case of an injured child, varying
the social class of the fictitious child. Physi-
cians were significantly more likely to label
"lower-class children" as abused children
than "middle-class children." Nevertheless,
given the high agreement among aggregate
and individual studies, as well as the estab-
lished link between economic loss and puni-
tive parenting, we believe that a causal rela-
tion exists between poverty and child abuse,
although biases of the sort mentioned may in-
fiate the estimates.
Characteristics of the child.How chil-
dem are treated by economically deprived
parents depends partly on the child's tem-
perament and physical appearance. Rutter's
(1979) research with economically deprived
families revealed that temperamentally easy
children were much less likely than children
with difficult temperaments to be the target of
parental criticism and harshness. Child tem-
perament also conditioned how fathers ex-
periencing economic loss during the Great
Depression behaved toward their children.
Children who were temperamentally difficult
at 18 months were more likely to be disci-
plined in an extreme (severe punishment or
indifference) and arbitrary manner by finan-
cially pressed fathers 3 years later. This was
true even when the father's earlier irritabil-
ity (i.e., when the child was 18 months old)
was controlled (Elder et al., 1985; Elder,
Caspi, & Nguyen, 1986). Studies of child
abuse also have identified the child's temper-
ament as a factor that appears to elicit
maltreatment (Belsky, 1980).
326 Child Development
Research with parents who have sus-
tained heavy economic losses as well as in-
vestigations of abusive parents reveal that the
risk of maltreatment also is heightened if the
child is physically unattractive. Perhaps this
is because physically unattractive children
have lesser parental value or are less self-
confident and assertive as a consequence of
lower self-esteem (Belsky, 1980; Elder et al.,
1985, 1986).
Black-white differences in parenting be-
havior.Black children are three times as
likely as white children to die of child abuse
(Children's Defense Fund, 1985), but consid-
erable disagreement exists about whether
race differences exist in the prevalence of
child abuse independent of socioeconomic
factors such as income and employment status
(Cazenave & Straus, 1979). As with lower-
class status, minority status appears to bias
physicians toward attributing child injuries to
abuse. In the Turbett and O'Toole (cited in
Hampton, 1986) study mentioned in the pre-
vious section, physicians' attributions of major
injuries to the fictitious child increased by
33% if the child was identified as black rather
than white. Hampton (1986) analyzed child
maltreatment cases seen in hospitals in terms
of whether they were reported initially to
child protective services as alleged victims of
child abuse or came to the attention of the
hospital through some other source. Black
children were more likely than white chil-
dren to be reported to child protection agen-
cies, as were children who lived in single-
parent families and families that received
public assistance. These two investigations
suggest that, indeed, bias may result in child
abuse estimates that are inflated for blacks
and underrepresentative for whites.
Evidence from a number of studies based
on observations, self-reports, and responses to
vignettes suggests that black parents are more
severe, punitive, and pow^er assertive in the
discipline of their children than white parents
of similar socioeconomic status (Allen, 1985;
Blau, 1981; Hale, 1982; Portes et al., 1986).
Black parents also report using arbitrary rules
more often and psychologically oriented dis-
cipline techniques less often (e.g., guilt in-
duction) (Durrett, O'Bryant, & Pennebaker,
1975). A different picture emerges from other
studies, however. Both Baumrind (1972) and
Bartz and Levine (1978) found blacks dis-
posed to a style of discipline that was firm,
but supportive and nonrejecting. Data con-
ceming race differences in parents' indepen-
dence and responsibility demands also are
mixed. In some studies, blacks have been
found to expect the child to overcome the de-
pendency of infancy and assume responsi-
bility at an earlier age than whites (Bartz &
Levine, 1978), whereas in other studies this
difference is reversed (Allen, 1985).
Some scholars have asserted that the
putative tendency toward power assertion
and the values associated with it (i.e., obedi-
ence and respect for elders) are culturally
rooted and can be traced to traditional African
values (Hale, 1982; Peters & Massey, 1983). It
is also plausible that this child-rearing pattem
was fostered by the experience of slavery
(Wortman, 1981; Wright, 1982). Furthermore,
it may have been reinforced subsequently by
stressful circumstances in the lives of blacks
(Dowhrenwend & Dowhrenwend, 1969;
Powell, 1982). Environmental stressors also
may influence parents' independence expec-
tations and demands. Note, however, that
even though some investigations flnd race dif-
ferences after social class is controlled, use of
traditional social class taxonomies to control
for social class does not necessarily equalize
blacks and whites in terms of material depri-
vation. In some investigations, blacks have
been found to suffer more material depriva-
tion than whites of similar socioeconomic
status (Blau, 1981; Horowitz & Wolock, 1985).
In Horowitz and Wolock's (1985) study of
abusing families, for example, all of the sub-
jects were AFDC recipients, but blacks ex-
perienced greater material deprivation and
environmental difficulties. They reportedly
inflicted greater physical harm on their chil-
dren than did whites. This difference, as well
as race differences in the use of power asser-
tion by nonabusing parents, may be partly
due to inequality in material resources and
environmental supports and, in tum, differen-
tial levels of psychological distress. The ro-
bust interactive effect between race and so-
cial class on psychological distress (Kessler &
Neighbors, 1986) endorses the view that psy-
chological distress is an important source of
race differences in the parenting behaviors of
low-income adults. Numerous other con-
ditions, however, also may explain these dif-
ferences. For example, black lower-class
women, compared to white lower- and mid-
dle-class women, begin childbearing earlier,
have more children, and have children who
are spaced closer togetherfactors that in-
crease emotional strain and foster parenting
that relies more on coercion than negotiation
and reasoning (Blau, 1981; Glick, 1981; Her-
renkohl & Herrenkohl, 1981; Longfellow,
Zelkowitz, & Saunders, 1982; Myers & King,
1983; Pearlin & Johnson, 1977). Thus, a co-

gent analysis of black-white differences in
parenting must take into account cultural, de-
mographic, environmental, and psychological
factors.
In summary, existing research supports
the conclusion that poverty and economic loss
generally result in more punitive and less
nurturant, supportive behavior by parents, es-
pecially if their children are temperamentally
difficult and physically unattractive. This con-
clusion is buttressed by research on child
abuse. The relation between economic hard-
ship and punitive, inconsistent parenting be-
havior seems to stem from increased levels
of anxiety, irritabilify, and depression expe-
rienced by economically deprived parents.
Economic haurdship also can result in emo-
tional estrangement between fathers and
sons, but this outcome appears to depend
greatly on the mother's attitude toward the
father and whether the father is blamed for
the economic difficulfy. Two distinct pattems
of child rearing have been associated with
black parentsone that combines strictness
and high support and another marked by
power assertion, punitiveness, and arbitrari-
ness. The determinants of these pattems are
unclear, but there is reason to believe that
childbearing history and related environmen-
tal factors, psychological distress, and cultural
factors are involved in the latter pattem.
The next section brings together research
supporting the assumptions in our analytic
model about the key mechanisms by which
poverfy and economic loss adversely affect
children. Specifically, it reviews studies of
the relation between child-rearing practices
and psychological distress in parents and
investigations of punitive, nonsupportive,
and inconsistent parenting in relation to
children's socioemotional functioning. These
linkages are underscored in a discussion of
the role of social networks in easing the emo-
tional distress of parents, tempering harsh
parental treatment, and, in tum, promoting
socioemotional development in economically
disadvantaged children.
Linkages between Parents' Emotional
State, Parenting Behavior, and
Socioemotional Functioning
in the Child
Parental emotional state as a determi-
nant of parenting behavior.A growing
body of data, most from mothers of infants and
preschoolers, directly ties psirental punitive-
ness, inconsistency, and unresponsiveness to
negative emotional states in the parent. These
data are consistent with studies showing that
Vonnie C. McLoyd 327
parents respond to economic loss with in-
creased irritabilify, hostilify, and depression
and, in tum, with punitive and erratic behav-
ior toward the child (Elder, 1979; Elder er al.,
1984, 1985; Lempers et al., 1989). In Conger
et al.'s (1984) observational study of black and
white mothers and children (mean age = 7.5
years) from diverse socioeconomic back-
grounds, mothers who reported high emo-
tional distress, as compared to mothers report-
ing lower stress, exhibited fewer positive
behaviors (e.g., hugs, praise, supportive state-
ments) and more negative behaviors toward
the child (e.g., threats, derogatory statements,
slaps). Similarly, matemal depression and
emotional distress have been found to be as-
sociated with physical abuse, use of aversive,
coercive discipline, and diminished matemal
sensitivity and satisfaction with parenting
(Cmic & Greenberg, 1987; Daniel et al.,
1983; Patterson, 1986). Heightened depres-
sion and psychosomatic problems appear to
explain some of the changes in parenting
following divorce, an event promoted by
economic hardship. During and following
divorce, custodial mothers often become self-
involved, uncommunicative, nonsupportive,
and inconsistently punitive toward their chil-
dren (Hetherington et al., 1989).
The relation between psychological dis-
tress and parenting behavior exists within
samples of poor individuals too. Poor parents
whose total stress burden is high are less
happy and less involved in the activities of
their preschool and adolescent children than
poor parents who experience fewer stressors
(Wilson, 1974). High levels of psychological
distress also dispose poor adolescent mothers
to custodial and unstimulating contact with
their infants (Crockenberg, 1987). McLoyd
and Wilson (in press) found in their recent
study of economically disadvantaged black
and white mothers that those who were more
distressed psychologically perceived their
parenting as more difficult, were less nurtur-
ant of their children, and discussed money
matters and personal problems with their
children more frequently than mothers re-
porting less psychological distress. Additional
evidence conceming the child-rearing be-
haviors of mothers who are psychologically
distressed is provided by Longfellow et al.
(1982) and Zelkowitz's (1982) investigation of
poor black and white mothers of 57-year-
olds. Longfellow et al. reported that the more
highly stressed and depressed the mothers
were, the less responsive they were to their
children's dependency needs and the more
likely they were to be hostile and dominating.
328 Child Development
Highly depressed mothers yelled and hit
their children more frequently and relied less
on reasoning and loss of privileges in disci-
plining them. They also demanded more ex-
tensive involvement in household mainte-
nance from their children and placed greater
responsibilify on them. In a similar vein, Zel-
kowitz (1982) reported that poor mothers who
were anxious and depressed were more likely
to expect immediate compliance from their
children, although they were less consistent
in following through on their requests if their
children did not comply. They were more
likely to see their matemal role as teaching
socially appropriate behavior and valued
obedience and "good" behavior more highly.
These mothers were not unaware of how
negative psychological states affected their
parenting behavior. They reported that
among the hardest things to do when feeling
depressed were being nurturant, patient, and
involved with their children (Longfellow et
al., 1982). These mothers also seemed to be
aware that the parenting strategies they were
most prone to use when depressed were,
in the main, ineffective and changeworthy.
Thus, psychological overload, rather than ig-
norance of the principles of effective par-
enting (as suggested by others, e.g., Piuck,
1975), may explain differences between poor
and nonpoor parents' sfyle of interaction with
their children.
The studies reviewed up to this point
have assessed depressive affect on the basis
of self-reports on symptom checklists. An in-
creasing number of studies have examined
the parenting behavior of depressed (or
manic-depressive) mothers identifled on the
basis of clinical diagnosis. In general, these
studies point to a pattem of matemal unre-
sponsiveness, nonsupportiveness, and hostile
coerciveness toward the child. When interact-
ing with their preschool children, depressed
mothers are more critical, less positive in af-
fective expression, less responsive to the
child's overtures, and less active and spon-
taneous (Davenport, Zahn-Waxler, Adland, &
Mayfield, 1984; Downey & Coyne, 1989;
Radke-Yarrow, Richters, & Wilson, in press).
They are more likely to choose conflict-res-
olution strategies that require little effort,
such as dropping initial demands when the
child is resistant or enforcing obedience uni-
laterally rather than negotiating with the child
(Kochanska, Kuczynski, Radke-Yarrow, &
Walsh, 1987). The more severe the mother's
depression, the more likely she is to slap and
shout at the child to signal disapproval and
the more negative is her perception of the
child (Panaccione & Wahler, 1986). The latter
finding bears striking resemblance to Johnson
and Abramovitch's (1985) finding in a study of
unemployed blue-collar and lower-level pro-
fessional fathers who were primary caretakers
of their preschool children. The longer they
were unemployed the more negatively they
described their children.
Parenting and socioemotional function-
ing in the child.Children whose parents
have experienced job loss, severe income
loss, or periods of unemployment have more
socioemotional problems than their econom-
ically advantaged counterparts. These prob-
lems include depression, loneliness (Lem-
pers et al., 1989; Wemer & Smith, 1982),
emotional sensitivify (Elder et al., 1985), so-
cial withdrawal (Buss & Redbum, 1983), low
self-esteem (Coopersmith, 1967; Isralowitz &
Singer, 1986), and behavior problems (Flana-
gan, 1988; Wemer & Smith, 1982). There is
direct evidence that at least some of these
problems in white children are mediated by
punitive and harsh parental discipline
brought on by economic loss. For example, in
Lempers et al.'s (1989) study of white work-
ing- and middle-class adolescents (grades 9
12), economic loss led to higher rates of ado-
lescent delinquency and drug use through
increasing inconsistent and punitive disci-
pline by parents (as reported by the adoles-
cents). Transgression-proneness is also higher
among children living in families that have
experienced economic loss than among chil-
dren in families that have experienced an eco-
nomic gain, but only when parental accep-
tance of the child is low (Galambos &
Silbereisen, 1987b).
Sex differences have been noted in the
degree to which children are vulnerable to
the indirect effects of economic loss. Among
children who were 1 year old or less at the
beginning of the Depression (younger co-
hort), severe income loss increased the fre-
quency of temp>er tantrums and the tendency
toward quarrelsome, negativistic, and explo-
sive behavior 5 to 10 years later, but only
through the increasing arbitrariness of the
father's discipline (Elder et al., 1984). Nega-
tive effects were especially pronounced
among impoverished boys, as compared to
nondeprived boys, apparently because moth-
ers in deprived families were less support-
ive and protective of sons than mothers in
nondeprived families. (By comparison, de-
prived girls received more matemal support
than nondeprived girls.) These differences
continued into adolescence, when deprived
boys, as compared to nondeprived boys, man-

ifested developmental limitations (e.g., feel-
ing victimized and cheated by life, self-
defeating behavior, low goal orientation).
Deprived girls, on the other hand, were more
goal oriented, self-confident, and assertive
than nondeprived girls (Elder et al., 1979).
Among children who were 8 to 9 years
old when the economy crashed (older cohort),
however, it was girls, rather than boys, who
fered poorly. Adolescent girls in econom-
ically deprived families suffered considerable
socioemotional distress in response to the
father's harshness (e.g., moodiness, hypersen-
sitivify, feelings of inadequacy, lowered aspi-
rations). In contrast, the functioning of de-
prived adolescent boys, compared to
nondeprived adolescent boys, refiected a pat-
tem of resiliency and ego strength. Whereas
the father's behavior was predictive of socio-
emotional problems among adolescent girls,
adolescent boys' functioning was unaffected
by their fathers' behavior. The sex difference
in father mediation, may have resulted be-
cause fathers directed more punitive behavior
toward their adolescent daughters than their
adolescent sons owing to the daughters' lesser
size and strength and/or greater acceptance of
such abusive behavior (Elder et al., 1985). It
also may be explained by adolescent girls'
greater exposure to marital conflict and abu-
sive behavior as compared to adolescent boys'
exposure. Adolescent girls spent more time in
the home than boys doing chores to compen-
sate for the absence of mothers who took jobs
to supplement femily income; boys more of-
ten found employment outside the home (El-
der, 1974; Elder et al., 1985).
An obvious and important question con-
cems whether younger children are more vul-
nerable than older children to the indirect ef-
fects of economic loss. Few data are available
to address this issue. Researchers focusing
on contemporary families experiencing eco-
nomic loss have not examined differences
in mediational processes as a function of
the child's developmental status (Elder et
al., 1989; Galambos & Silbereisen, 1987a;
Lempers et al., 1989). Elder's longitudinal
research with Depression era families, how-
ever, was used to explore this question. Chil-
dren's developmental status at the time the
economy crashed did not emerge as a consis-
tent determinant of their vulnerabilify to fa-
thers' harsh and arbitrary discipline. Cohort
comparisons by sex revealed that boys were
more vulnerable to the indirect effects of eco-
nomic loSs if economic loss occurred earlier
rather than later. The reverse was true for
girls. Factors that would appear to increase
Vonnie C. McLoyd 329
the young child's vulnerabilify to negative pa-
ternal behavior, including increased presence
in the home, longer exposure to economic
hardship, and limited cognitive skills that en-
courage feelings of self-blame, apparently
were counteracted by exceptionally high
levels of matemsil support to young daugh-
ters. On the other hand, older daughters' pres-
ence in the home (owing to their domestic
responsibilities) apparently exposed them to
high levels of patemal maltreatment, without
countervailing matemal support (Elder, 1974,
1979).
Poverfy has been linked to a variefy of
socioemotional problems in both black and
white children of varying ages, including
such difficulties as depression (Gibbs, 1986),
strained peer relations (Langner et al., 1970),
low self-confidence, conduct disorders, and
higher levels of overall social maladaptation
and psychological disorder (Kellam, Ensmin-
ger, & Tumer, 1977; Langner et al., 1969;
Levinson, 1969; Myers & King, 1983).
Somatic complaints also are positively associ-
ated with economic deprivation (McLoyd,
1988). Existing research does not provide di-
rect evidence conceming whether these
negative effects are moderated by age or
mediated by parental behavior, reflecting the
adevelopmental and outcome-oriented, rather
than process-oriented, paradigms dominating
the psychological study of poor and black
children (McLoyd & Randolph, 1984; Wash-
ington & McLoyd, 1982). There is reason to
believe, however, that parenting behavior di-
rectly affects these child outcomes, in view of
findings from studies of families experiencing
economic loss and evidence that child-rearing
practices more prevalent among impover-
ished parents are predictive of many of these
socioemotional problems. We consider some
of the latter below, drawing from different
bodies of literature. Many of the studies men-
tioned include, but are rarely limited to, black
children. Some samples are comprised pri-
marily of children experiencing economic
hardship, while others are more balanced so-
cioeconomically.
A vast literature exists conceming the
consequences for children's socioemotional
functioning of nonsupportive behavior in par-
ents, defined as low levels of behavior that
make the child feel comfortable in the pres-
ence of the parent and communicate to the
child that he or she is basically accepted and
approved (Rollins & Thomas, 1979). Research
consistently shows that children whose par-
ents are nonsupportive have lower self-
esteem (Coopersmith, 1967; Gecas, 1979; Rol-
330 Child Development
lins & Thomas, 1979) and more psychological
disorders, exhibit more antisocial aggression
and behavioral problems (Rollins & Thomas,
1979), and are more likely to show arrested
ego development (Powers, Hauser, & Kilner,
1989).
Both poverfy and economic decline are
associated with problems in children's peer
relations (Elder, 1974; Langner et al., 1970),
and this may stem from the sfyles of interac-
tion that children leam from their parents.
Children of parents experiencing economic
hardship are more likely to be exposed to
power-assertive and punitive discipline by
the parent and, in tum, may imitate the parent
by handling interpersonal confiict with co-
ercion rather than negotiation (Downey &
Coyne, 1989; Rollins & Thomas, 1979). Fur-
thermore, with less sustained positive interac-
tion with the parent, the child has fewer op-
portunities to leam and master verbal and
instrumental strategies that help in initiating
and maintaining positive peer interaction. In
a study of preschoolers, Parke, MacDonald,
Beitel, and Bhavnagri (1988) found that low
patemal engagement and physical play as
well as infrequent matemal verbal inter-
change were negatively associated with peer
popularify, helpfulness, leadership, involve-
ment, and communication skills in preschool
children but positively associated with unde-
sirable attributes such as apprehensiveness,
inabilify to get along with others, and unwill-
ingness to share. Although bidirectional pro-
cesses clearly are involved, these findings
suggest that parents play a significant role in
the development of social incompetence.
Work with families of antisocial boys is
particularly instructive conceming this issue
(Patterson, 1986). Preadolescent and adoles-
cent children are at high risk for becoming
antisocial and highly aggressive if they are
temperamentally difficult and have parents
who are highly irritable and erratic. Parents of
these children are inconsistent in their pun-
ishment of misbehavior and tend to threaten,
nag, and badger their children in disciplinary
confrontations, but seldom follow through on
their threats. Occasionally, they physically as-
sault the child. Divorce research also supports
the basic notion that harsh, inconsistent disci-
pline fosters socioemotional problems in the
child. Depression, aggressiveness, noncom-
pliance, acting-out, and peer confiict among
children of divorced parents oftentimes are
responses to negative changes in the parents'
socialization practices following the divorce
(Hethedngton et al., 1989; Wallerstein, 1988;
Weiss, 1979).
Young children of depressed parents are
at increased risk of some of the same socio-
emotional problems found to be prevalent
among economically deprived children (i.e.,
conduct disorders, social maladjustment, de-
pression). Harsh discipline is one of the key
mediators between parental depression and
child maladjustment (Downey & Coyne,
1989). Many of the socioemotional problems
of poor children may be similarly caused. The
critical role of parenting behavior is under-
scored by research demonstrating that child
abuse is a more powerful predictor of child
maladjustment than whether or not the parent
is depressed (Downey & Coyne, 1989;
JCashani, Shekim, Burk, & Beck, 1987). Chil-
dren who have been physically or emotion-
ally abused manifest numerous socioemo-
tional problems (e.g, passivity, withdrawal,
negativify, low self-esteem, impaired social
relations) (Aber & Cicchetti, 1984). Egeland
and Sroufe (1981) conducted one of the most
cited longitudinal studies of the sequelae of
child abuse, focusing on a sample of poor ur-
ban families. Children who suffered physical
abuse, compared with children who had not
been abused, were less securely attached to
their caregivers at 18 months and exhibited
significantly more anger, aggression, fmstra-
tion, and noncompliance and less positive af-
fect in a mother-child problem-solving task at
24 months. Chronic verbal abuse (i.e., con-
stantly flnding fault with child, extremely
harsh criticism) combined with physical
abuse was predictive of fmstration, anger, and
noncompliance in the child. Children of
mothers who were detached and psychologi-
cally unavailable to the child (e.g., lack of re-
sponsiveness, passive rejection of child) and
in some cases physically abusive were less
securely attached at 18 months and displayed
less positive affect than children of mothers
who provided adequate care.
In sum, there is direct evidence that anx-
iefy, depression, and irritabilifystates
heightened by economic hardshipincrease
the tendency of parents to be punitive, erratic,
unilateral, and generally nonsupportive of
their children. In line with differences that
have been found in the child-directed be-
haviors of impoverished versus more affluent
parents, psychological strain encourages the
parent to adopt disciplinary strategies that
require less effort (e.g., physical punishment,
commanding without explanation, reliance on
authorify) rather than more (e.g., reasoning,
explaining, negotiating). Depression, in par-
ticular, diverts the parent's attention from the
child and fosters a tendency to attend dispro-

porbonately to child behaviors seen as nega-
tive by the parent These parenting behaviors,
especially in the extreme, have been found in
longitudinal studies to be critical antecedents
of socioemotional problems in children.
A discussion of the effects of economic
hardship on parental and child functioning
would be glaringly incomplete without con-
sideration of fectors that buffer negative ef-
fects. We have already touched on some of
these factors but present a more focused and
in-depth discussion in the following section.
Parents' social networks as moderators
of punitive and arbitrary discipline.A bur-
geoning body of research indicates that social
networks provide parents with support and
assistance that often improve their disposi-
tions and, in tum, lessen their tendency to-
ward coercively disciplining their children.
Such networks may also exercise sanctions
and controls against excessively harsh par-
enting behavior (Cochran & Brassard, 1979).
In the discussion that follows, studies of black
parents experiencing economic hardship are
emphasized. When the data base on this
group is inadequate to support the discussion,
however, we bring in research on impover-
ished white parents and parents living under
more favorable economic conditions. Virtu-
ally all of these studies focus on mothers, but
we assume that most reported effects are
generalizable to fathers. To the extent that so-
cial networks temper the negative emotional
and behavioral pattems associated with eco-
nomic hardship and foster parental nurtur-
ance and consistency, they may indirectly
promote positive functioning in the child.
This assertion is extrapolated from research
with both black and non-black families indi-
cating that poor parents who are supportive
but firm and consistent disciplinarians are
more likely to have children who function
well socioemotionally and academically than
those who are punitive, power assertive, and
erratic (Clark, 1983; Garmezy, Masten, & Tel-
legen, 1984; Masten et al., in press; Nuechter-
lein, 1970; Wemer & Smith, 1982). Moreover,
the bulk of evidence suggests that social net-
works in the context of the extended family
have more indirect than direct effects on the
child through their effects on the mother (Wil-
son, 1989).
1. Em.otional support.Emotional sup-
port typically is provided in the context of in-
timate relationships and friendships. It may
include companionship, expressions of affec-
tion, and the availabilify of a confidant. We
indicated in an earlier section that social sup-
Vonnie C. McLoyd 331
port reduces symptomatology among adults
experiencing economic decline and poverfy.
More relevant here are those studies focusing
specifically on the effects of support on the
socialization behavior and attitudes of finan-
cially hfird-pressed parents. In investigations
of poor mothers (black and white) and eco-
nomically diverse samples that include moth-
ers of young children receiving welfare, those
receiving higher levels of emotional support
report feeling less overwhelmed by their par-
enting situation, more gratified by the mater-
nal role, and more satisfied with their off-
spring (Cmic & Greenberg, 1987; Zur-Szpiro
& Longfellow, 1982). Colletta (1981), for ex-
ample, found that emotional support was
the strongest predictor of matemal behavior
(other kinds of support included child care,
task assistance, material, financial, and infor-
mational support) among both black and
white adolescent mothers, about half of whom
were on welfare. Mothers with high levels of
emotional support reported being less likely
to nag, scold, ridicule, or threaten their chil-
dren. Low levels of support were predictive
of matemal hostilify, indifference, and rejec-
tion of the child. The relation between emo-
tional support and matemal behavior was
strongest when the adolescent's own family
was the source of the support, as compared to
support from friends or the mother's partner
or spouse.
Observational data substantiate findings
based on matemal reports. Intimate or emo-
tional support is predictive of positive mater-
nal affect and mother-infant interaction in
middle-class samples (Cmic & Greenberg,
1987) and in samples that include poor as
well as more affluent mothers (Cmic, Green-
berg, Ragozin, Robinson, & Basham, 1983). In
other investigations, satisfaction with emo-
tional support, but not actual amount of emo-
tional support received, has been found to be
associated with positive mother-child com-
munication and matemal nurturance (Wein-
traub & Wolf, 1983).
2. Informational support and role model-
ing.Cotterell (1986) examined the relation
between qualify of child rearing and infor-
mational support, deflned as useful informa-
tion and advice about managing one's home
and children. Informational support was pos-
itively associated with matemal warmth,
mother-child play, matemal teaching and cog-
nitive stimulation of the child, and frustration
tolerance. Collaborative child care, especially
between a neophyte and an experienced
mother, may foster sensitive parenting behav-
iors because it provides a favorable context for
332 Child Development
informational support and positive role mod-
eling. Black grandmothers' knowledge about
infant development is a strong predictor of
their adolescent daughters' (who are mothers)
knowledge on the same topic. Furthermore,
black grandmothers have been found to in-
teract with their grandbabies less punitively,
more reciprocally, and more responsively
than the teenage mothers of these infants
(Stevens, 1984). Observation of such behav-
iors may enhance parenting skills in young
mothers. Although other research suggests
that black grandmothers are more restrictive
and physically punitive toward the child as
compared to their daughters (Martin & Mar-
tin, 1978; Wilson, 1986), this pattem appears
not to hold when the mother is a teenager and
the grandchild is an infant, perhaps because
teenage mothers are less knowledgeable and
more unrealistic about child development
and parenting than older mothers (King &
FuUard, 1982) or because grandmothers are
more indulgent with infants than with older
children.
Blau (1981) reported that black mothers'
exposure to white friends and co-workers was
associated with increased investment in their
children (e.g., positive interaction during in-
fancy and early childhood such as reading to
the child, taking the child along when shop-
ping or visiting friends) and, in turn, more
positive intellectual development in the chil-
dren. Increased opportunify for association
with the purveyors of white mainstream cul-
ture, contended Blau, enhanced black par-
ents' efficacy in socializing the kinds of com-
petence valued in white mainstream culture,
in part because it pressured black parents
to forswear traditional "black" child-rearing
practices and embrace those modeled by the
purveyors. It is unclear whether the relation
Blau found is due to direct exchanges of infor-
mation about child-rearing, modeling, assis-
tance in child-rearing responsibilities, or a
variefy of other factors. Moreover, other inter-
pretations of these data are plausible, self-
selection being the most obvious. The child-
rearing ideologies and practices of black
parents who select into integrated settings
may be systematically different from those
who select into segregated contexts.
Dill (1980) goes further by showing that
interracial contact can have bidirectional ef-
fects. In her ethnographic study of black
women who worked for white families as do-
mestics, some of the women said they ad-
mired their employers' tendency to talk, rea-
son, and negotiate with their children and,
consistent with Blau's argument, emulated
this behavior in dealing with their own chil-
dren. Nonetheless, they disapproved of the
tendency of employers' children to "talk
back" and question their parents' authorify.
Further, they saw themselves as teaching par-
enting skills to the employers via modeling
and direct instruction and, as such, inserted
their own values into the employers' parent-
child relationships. These black women set
rules and regulations to govern the white chil-
dren's behavior and often were admired by
their employers for their child-rearing effec-
tiveness. Interracial contact probably has
myriad effects on the parenting behaviors of
black adults, depending on the nature of the
contact and the ecological context.
3. Parenting support.Parenting sup-
port refers to the provision of assistance in the
parenting role and typically includes help
with child care. It can be given with regu-
larify in the context of an ongoing relation-
ship, such as collaborative child-care arrange-
ments, or sporadically on an ad hoc basis.
Numerous studies bear out its positive effects
on matemal behavior and mother-child in-
teraction. In Crockenberg's (1987) observa-
tional study of an economically deprived sam-
ple of adolescent mothers, some of whom
were black, matemal sensitivify and accessi-
bilify to the baby increased with an increase
in the number of family members who helped
with various household and child-care chores.
In addition, mothers with higher levels of
daily support from family and nonfamily
members responded more quickly when their
babies cried than mothers whose daily sup-
port was lower. Low-income divorced moth-
ers who receive more parenting help are less
restrictive and punitive when dealing with
their children. Furthermore, matemal sat-
isfaction with support has been found to be
positively associated with promptness in re-
sponding to the child's attention demands
and a tendency to repeat requests rather than
immediately punish the child for noncom-
pliance; satisfaction is negatively associated
with punitiveness, use of physical punish-
ment, and imposition of strict rules in the
household (Colletta, 1979). This is consistent
with reports from both black and white low-
income adolescent mothers that they are
warmer and less rejecting of their preschool
children vi'hen given an opportunify to break
continuous interactions with them for more
than 2 hours (Colletta, 1981). Parenting sup-
port also increases the mother's abilify to give
effective directions to the child and get the
child to conform to rules (Weinraub & Wolf,
1983). Among poor black teenagers, greater
 Vonnie C. McLoyd 333
network support also appears to encourage combination of psychological and communify
help-seeking from extended family members factors.
in solving child-rearing problems (Stevens,
1988). Other research contrasting neighbor-
hoods in terms of social rather than demo-
Recent research has begun to clarify the graphic characteristics shows links to the
conditions under which social and parenting qualify of child rearing. In a unique and care-
support have greater potency. Work to date fully controlled study, Garbarino and Sher-
suggests that support relationships have more man (1980) compared the social ecology of
impact on emotional and parental functioning two white neighborhoods that differed greatly
when psychological distress is relatively low in the rate of child abuse and neglect but
(Crockenberg, 1987), during times of major had similar socioeconomic and demographic
life b-ansitions (Cmic & Greenberg, 1987), profiles. Results supported their hypothesis
and when the source of stress is an event that these two neighborhoods represented
rather than a chronic condition (Dressier, contrasting environments for child rearing.
1985). The relation between social and par- Mothers in the low-risk area, as compared to
enting support and psychological distress is those in the high-risk area, reported more ex-
further complicated by the fact that support is changes among neighbors in general, more
sometimes provided by persons who also are exchanges of child supervision, increased use
major sources of distress, reducing the effec- of other neighborhood children as playmates,
tiveness of the support (Belle, 1982; Crocken- and a larger number of people who took an
berg, 1987). Similarly, as several researchers interest in their child's welfare. Furthermore,
who study black families have pointed out, they rated their neighborhood as a better
embeddedness in an extended family net- place to rear children, the availabilify of child
work, while generally providing economic care more positively, and their children as
and psychological benefits, is not without its easier to raise, as compared to mothers in the
psychological and material costs. These costs high-risk neighborhood. This is consistent
include feeling burdened by obligations to with other research with black and white
the extended family, feeling exploited by farriilies demonstrating that, compared to
those who want more than they need or de- nonabusing parents, parents who abuse their
serve, disagreement conceming the need for children are more isolated from formal and
and/or use of aid, and disapproval by ex- informal support networks, are less likely to
tended family members of potential marital have a relative living nearby, and have lived
partners and child-rearing practices and deci- in their neighborhoods for shorter periods of
sions (Stack, 1974; Wilson, 1986). time (Cazenave & Straus, 1979; Daniel et al.,
1983; Gelles, 1980; Trickett & Susman, 1988).
Researchers have reported relations be-
tween the qualify of parenting and a number When network members live within walk-
of communify characteristics thought to affect ing distance, mothers receive more day-to-day
it. For example, in a study of four communi- parenting assistance, and those who see net-
ties in Australia, Cotterell (1986) found that work members more frequently report more
degree of transience and proportion of older child assistance in emergency and nonemer-
adults in the communities were negatively gency situations (Belle, 1982). Moreover,
related to cognitive stimulation, matemal parents who report high levels of neighbor-
warmth, and overall qualify of child rearing. hood support are more satisfied with par-
According to Cotterell, these two characteris- enting and express more positive affect
tics influenced parenting behavior through toward their infants (Cmic & Greenberg,
their effect on the pool of same-age network 1987). Child-keeping, wherein a mother tem-
members available to the mother. Among porarily shifts the residence of her children,
black mothers who are poor, physical pun- most often to her female kin, in response to
ishment as a child management technique changes in her life was found to be common
is used more frequently among those who among the lower-class black community
perceive their neighborhoods to be highly studied by Stack (1974). Since this practice
dangerous and rife with negative influences gives the mother a "break" during particu-
compared to those who describe their neigh- larly stressful times, it is reasonable to assume
borhoods as safer (Kriesberg, 1970). This may that it is a buffer against child maltreatment.
reflect, of course, the former's greater intoler-
ance of child disobedience because of the in- It should be noted that the isolation of
creased presence of dangers and threats to the abusive families may be partly self-imposed
child's safefy, higher levels of psychological owing to perceptions of the world as hostile
distress, lack of child-care assistance, or a and threatening (Trickett & Susman, 1988).
334 Child Development
Furthermore, abusive parents may lack inter-
personal skills necessary for positive rela-
tionsa failing that may discourage other
adults from initiating and maintaining social
interactions with them, further reinforcing
their social isolation (Belsky, 1980; Trickett &
Susman, 1988).
Other studies of the relations between
parenting support at the neighborhood/com-
munify level and matemal behavior focus on
professionals, rather than neighbors and rela-
tives. Several investigations have found use
of communify/neighborhood health services
to have no enhancing effect on the mater-
nal behavior and psychological well-being
of black and white adolescent mothers (Col-
letta, 1981; Colletta & Lee, 1983; Crocken-
berg, 1987). In fact, in one study, adolescent
mothers were more dissatisfied with profes-
sionals than any other group of helpers.
Health professionals were often regarded as
unsympathetic, impatient, disapproving, un-
informative, and offering parenting advice
that contradicted that of family members or
other professionals (Crockenberg, 1987). It
appears that negative attitudes among profes-
sionals who serve adolescent mothers, at least
as perceived by their clients, undercut their
role as potential facilitators of matemal func-
tioning.
As suggested earlier, the positive effects
of parenting support on the mother's child-
rearing behavior may enhance the child's
socioemotional development. Black and Chi-
cano children who are poor and live in eth-
nically congruent communities (i.e., a census
tract in which 25% or more of the tract is of
the same ethnicify as the child) have more
positive socioemotional functioning than
those who live in ethnically incongruent com-
munities (Sandier, 1980). The factors underly-
ing this relation are not well understood, but
it may be that ethnically congruent neighbor-
hoods provide more assistance in the par-
enting role (e.g., exchanges of child super-
vision, child-care assistance in emergency
situations, community activities geared to
the unique needs and interests of minority
parents) than ethnically incongruent neigh-
borhoods, which may, in tum, foster devel-
opment in the child.
McAdoo (1982) reported that black par-
ents who lived in predominantly black neigh-
borhoods and interacted to a lesser extent
with whites were less concemed about dis-
crimination and were more at ease psycho-
logically than black parents who lived in
integrated but predominantly white neigh-
borhoods. Perhaps the former were less fre-
quently exposed to attitudes and actions
perceived to be discriminatory, had more
network members who lived close by, and
had fewer experiences that precipitated feel-
ings of cultural alienation. In short, perhaps
they were more socially integrated into their
neighborhoods (a factor negatively eissociated
with psychological distress among working-
class blacks [Holahan et al., 1983]). This
could have positive consequences for the re-
ceipt of parenting support and, in tum, for the
child's socioemotional development. This hy-
pothesis is not necessarily inconsistent with
Blau's (1981) study in which parental invest-
ment in the child correlated positively with
blacks' exposure to whites, since there is no
evidence from that study that black parents in
integrated settings invested more in their
children because they received more par-
enting support.
Two other contexts in which parenting
support appears to be relatively high, namely,
in extended family households and in stable
marriages, have been linked to socioemo-
tional adjustment and cognitive development
among black children. The benefits of col-
laborative child care between the mother and
grandmother appear to be particularly great if
the mother is single (Furstenberg, 1976). Kel-
lam et al. (1977) found that socioemotional
adjustment in poor black children living in
mother/grandmother families was almost as
high as that of children living in mother/father
families, and significantly higher than that of
children living alone with the mother. Longi-
tudinal research with children bom to black
adolescent mothers indicates that substance
abuse, misbehavior in school, delinquent be-
havior, unhappiness, loneliness, and anxiefy
are less common among children whose
mothers have stable marriages than those
whose mothers are unmarried or have unsta-
ble marriages (Furstenberg et al., 1987). Per-
haps these relations reflect direct effects of
grandmothers and fathers on the child, but
they also may be indirect effects mediated by
salutary effects of grandmothers and hus-
bands on matemal behavior. The work of
Dornbusch and his colleagues suggests this
process. These researchers found that de-
viance is low^er among both black and white
adolescents living in one-parent extended
households (one-parent family sharing resi-
dence with extended family members) than
among those living in mother-only house-
holds, even afler controlling for income differ-
ences. The presence of extended family mem-
bers promoted parental control and curbed
 Vonnie C. McLoyd 335
adolescents' autonomy in decision making cally diffuse phenomenon among white chil-
(Dombusch et al., 1985). dren. Signiflcant drops in income owing to a
wide range of circumstances (e.g., divorce, job
4. Exercise of child-rearing sanctions and loss, cutbacks in work hours) occur more fre-
controls.In addition to indirectly prevent- quently among black families; consequently,
ing child maltreatment by enhancing parents' relatively more black children than white
psychological well-being, members of par- children fall into poverfy. In the last 2 de-
ents' social networks may directly check child cades, low wages, increasing levels of black
abuse by purposive intervention. Scholars male unemployment as a result of retrench-
have long suggested that one of the unique ment in the manufacturing sector of the econ-
functions of the black extended family is the omy, and, relatedly, the rise and duration of
prevention of child maltreatment (Shimkin, stay in female-headed households have con-
Louie, & Frate, cited in Cazenave & Straus, spired to threaten the economic well-being
1979; Martin & Martin, 1978). Network em- of black children even more than in earlier
beddedness increases detection of child times.
abuse, and a strong sense of obligation fosters
direct intervention in the interest of the child.
A family member may take the child from his This article embedded the etiology of so-
abusing parents without the parents' permis- cioemotional problems among economically
sion but with the approval of other extended deprived black children in an ecological
family members (Martin & Martin, 1978). framework that gave attention to macroeco-
nomic conditions, as well as parental behavior
Parents of adolescent mothers have been and individual behavior. The analytic frame-
found to play an active role in retarding ma- work guiding this article, however, is neces-
temal punitiveness. King and Fullard (1982) sarily incomplete since it ignores the effects
reported that black and white teenagers who on socioemotional functioning of biologi-
lived with their parents, compared to those cal insults to the child in utero, nutritional
who lived alone, were less punitive and re- deficiencies, school experience, and numer-
strictive in their interactions with their in- ous other factors. A major goal was to dem-
fants. Many of the teenagers in this study onstrate that poverfy and economic loss
were aware that parents lessened their ten- have similar effects on parental behavior
dency to use harsh and aversive disciplinary behavior that stems to a large degree from
practices, as evidenced by statements such psychological distress. The studies reviewed
as "I would hit him more if it weren't for reflect impressive agreement about the effects
my parents," and "My parents won't let me of economic hsirdship on parents' psychologi-
spank him as of^en as I think he should be cal functioning and about the processes link-
spanked." ing economic loss to children's socioemo-
tional development. Compared to parents
Network members may indirectly affect whose economic circumstances are more
the child's development through interdiction fevorable, parents who are hard pressed
and remediation of maltreatment of the child. financially are more depressed, irritable, and
Elder (1979) found that child maltreatment explosive and more likely to experience
by fathers experiencing severe economic loss marital conflict, effects that are more pro-
was less likely if the mother was protective of nounced and enduring among black men
the child, rather than aloof and unshielding. compared to white men. Furthermore, eco-
Mothers were far less protective of their nomic hardship weakens individuals' abilify
young sons than their young daughters, and to cope with new problems and difficulties,
this difference seems to explain why eco- hence they are more likely to succumb to the
nomic hardship during early childhood mark- debilitating effects of negative life events.
edly increased psychological impairment in The disciplinary behaviors distinguishing
young boys, even though it was linked to per- economically deprived parents from more
sonal strength and resourcefulness in young affluent, economically stable parents (e.g.,
girls. higher use of physical punishment, less fre-
quent use of reasoning and negotiation) also
Summary and Discussion distinguish mothers who are experiencing
A major insight from recent demographic high levels of emotional distress from those
research is that there are different kinds of whose distress is low. This further supports
poverfy that are systematically linked to race. the view that economic and social class differ-
Poverfy among black children is marked by ences in child-rearing behaviors are peirtly ex-
its persistence and geographic concentration, plained by differences in psychological dis-
whereas it is primarily a transitory, geographi- tress. Psychological distress in response to
336 Child Development
economic hardship is tempered by social and
financial support, extemal causal attributions,
and a number of other cognitive and affective
fectors.
Marital conflict stands out as a factor dis-
posing the father to respond to economic loss
with increased hostilify and arbitrariness to-
ward the child and encouraging the child to
question the father's authorify and form coa-
litions with the mother against the father. Pu-
nitive, harsh, nonsupportive parenting, exac-
erbated when the child is temperamentally
diflBcult and less physically attractive, is a
strong predictor of socioemotional problems
among children, but this conclusion is much
better substantiated for white children than
for black children.
Our analytic model emphasized not only
risk factors but protective factors as well. Par-
ents' socid networks provide emotional, in-
formational, and parenting support, and the
evidence is compelling that such support
lessens erratic and harsh treatment of
children among both black and white parents.
Although data are not plentiful, there is some
suggestion that social networks and support
relationships indirectly enhance socioemo-
tional functioning among poor black children.
By acknowledging the problems created by
economic hardship but, at the same time,
highlighting factors contributing to positive
family and child functioning, we sought to
avoid stereotyping and distorting poor black
families and their children. As a group living
on the economic margin, black parents and
their children are neither wholly deficient nor
astoundingly competent or resilient.
By necessify, this article drew from stud-
ies of nonblack children to inform us about
how black children may be affected by eco-
nomic loss. The article makes clear that, for
blacks, some links in our analytic model are
better substantiated than others. Ample evi-
dence exists of increased psychological dis-
tress among black men who are unemployed
and/or have lost jobs and black women who
are poor, and there is fairly sound evidence
conceming the social and cognitive factors
that temper these effects. Also reasonably
well documented are the consequences of
psychological distress for the behavior of poor
black mothers toward their children and the
moderating influence of social support.
The links among economic loss, family
functioning, and black children's develop-
ment, however, are virtually uncharted terri-
tory. This is paradoxical because, without ex-
ception, black workers suffer more than white
workers during economic recessions, both in
terms of level and duration of deprivation and
in terms of the proportion who are displaced
(James, 1985). Unfortunately, the lack of re-
search attention to the effects of economic
loss on black family life is reflective of a more
general paucify of research on the infiuence
of various dimensions of work (e.g., character-
istics of job, work schedule) on black workers
and their families (Collins, 1986). We know
that unemployment and marital dissolution
are closely linked among blacks, but we are
woefully uninformed about how economic
loss alters parental and child functioning in
black households. Research testing these
links in the model is sorely needed. Black
fathers as socializers of their children in any
social or economic context is a theme largely
absent from the child development literature
(McAdoo, 1981). Researchers have increas-
ingly tamed their attention to adolescent
black fathers, most of whom lack sufficient in-
come to raise their families out of poverfy, but
what of older fathers with more established
work histories and more stable marital and
parental relations? How does economic loss
affect their child-rearing behavior and at-
titudes? More important, how do two-parent
black families function and adapt as a child-
rearing system under conditions of economic
decline? Studies that combine interview data
and observational data on family interactional
pattems are likely to yield the greatest in-
sights.
Attention should be given to both more
immediate and long-term consequences for
the child (e.g., socioemotional functioning,
educational and occupational aspirations and
expectations, academic perfonnance, school
behavior) as well as the processes that lead to
these consequences. It is clear from the work
of Elder, Patterson, and others that children's
adjustment to stressful life circumstances is
less a matter of their personal characteristics
and individual resilience than of the family
system in which they function. The quality of
marital relations and parent-child relations
prior to the loss, personal characteristics of
the child, and network embeddedness and
support are all factors likely to influence the
adaptation process. These questions should
be pursued from a developmental perspective
to clarify how children's social and cognitive
competences influence their responses to eco-
nomic loss and how economic loss affects the
child's abilify to master the unique tasks of
different developmental periods. Addition-
ally, the categories of economic hardship re-
seachers study as contexts impinging on fam-

ily life and child development should be
expanded to include unstable work (Rubin,
1976) and low-wage employment. Mental
health agencies as well as those designing
intervention programs to help displaced and
impoverished parents and their children
would benefit from this information.
With even the most competent research
team and the most accessible and cooperative
study participants, this kind of research is
difficult and time consuming. To the list of
impediments we must add the increased pres-
ence of stressors in the lives of blacks (espe-
cially lower and working class) that makes
participation in research particularly burden-
some and the justifiably jaundiced view many
blacks, as potential study participants, hold
about psychological research because of its
historical bias toward interpretations that
blame the victim. Researchers must be will-
ing to commit substantial human and financial
resources to bridge these gaps and gain the
cooperation and trust of black femilies.
As the contents of this article testify, re-
search on the impact of economic decline on
children focuses exclusively on the children
of displaced men, despite significant numbers
of married and single mothers who are dis-
placed, unemployed, and seeking work. In-
vestigations of black mothers experiencing
economic loss should be undertaken not just
because they are not represented in the cur-
rent data base, but also because of the psycho-
logical and financial significance of their em-
ployment. Economic need historically has
forced black women to work in disproportion-
ate numbers compared to white women, and
hence labor force participation has become an
enculturated aspect of black women's sex-role
identify, self-esteem, and psychological ful-
fillment (Washington, 1988b). Furthermore,
the wages of black wives are more critical to
their families' standard of living than the
wages of white wives, owing to the depressed
wages of black husbands. As evidence of this,
drops in the work hours of wives in two-
parent households are more likely to push
black children into poverfy than white chil-
dren (Duncan & Rodgers, 1988). Economic
loss by female household heads undoubtedly
is even more stress inducing than it is for
wives, as there is no secondary wage earner to
cushion the financial impact Furthermore, as
we have shown in this article, single mothers
are at very high risk for mental health prob-
lems even under favorable economic circum-
stances. For a variefy of reasons, then, loss of
employment or earnings is likely to have
significant effects on the psychological and
Vonnie C. McLoyd 337
parental functioning of black mothers and, in
tum, their children.
Displacement of workers is expected to
continue as the manufacturing sector of the
economy declines. In addition, fewer com-
panies in the rapidly growing service-
producing sector are expected to provide
lifetime employment because they will be
smaller and have a higher turnover rate.
These projections suggest that workers will
face more frequent changes of salary, employ-
ers, and occupations. Research is needed to
understand the factors that render these tran-
sitions least stressful to workers and their
families.
Further specification by researchers of
environmental conditions that enhance and
impair parenting and socioemotional devel-
opment in the context of poverfy is crucial,
given that structural changes and current eco-
nomic policies reflecting a serious lack of will
to eradicate poverfy ensure that large seg-
ments of the black population will be eco-
nomically disadvantaged for some time to
come. Our understanding of the particular
features of neighborhoods/communities that
infiuence parenting and black children's de-
velopment has lagged, despite the obvious
importance of these issues and longstanding
appeals for such work (Bames, 1972; Myers &
King, 1983). Fortunately, Wilson's (1987) re-
cent writings about the growing isolation of
poor blacks have piqued researchers' interest
in these issues (e.g., Jencks & Mayer, in
press). However, it is not enough simply to
compare the development of, for example,
poor black children from similar families who
grow up in different kinds of neighborhoods,
although even studies that take a "social ad-
dress" approach would be preferable to the
present paucify of high-qualify data. Espe-
cially needed is scrupulous identification of
the particular features in communities that
produce a given effect and the processes
through which these effects occur (Bronfen-
brenner, 1986). For the purpose of formulat-
ing social policy, for example, it is important
to know whether particular effects impinge
on the child directly or indirectly through, for
example, the child's parents or teachers.
Poor communities, like more affluent
communities, differ on several dimensions
that may influence parenting and, in tum,
black children's development, under condi-
tions of poverfy and economic loss. Among
these factors are degree of political activism,
presence of mental health and human service
organizations, incidence of crime, salience of
338 Child Development
churches and religious organizations (which this approach. Researchers also need to adopt
may differ in the kinds of child-rearing prac- more precise definitions of poverfy; specifica-
tices they sanction), presence and qualify of tion of family income-to-need ratios would
day-care centers, and degree of parenting sup- help clarify the meaning and appropriate
port provided by neighbors. Another commu- generaliz^on of many findings.
nify characteristic that may indirectly, as well We need to better understand the sociali-
as directly, influence socioemotional develc^- zation of children's conceptions of economic
ment is the availabilify of employment for inequalify and causal attributions about eco-
teenagers or proximify to other areas where nomic hardship. Leahy's (in press) research
such opportunities exist. Under certain condi- with black and white children showed that
tions, employment among adolescents may those in lower socioeconomic strata were less
produce feelings of self-reliance, competence, likely than upper-middle-class children to ex-
dependabilify, and optimism about life plain poverfy by reference to equity (e.g.,
chances. It also may foster positive mentor re- lesser work, effort, education, intelligence
lationships, enhance the esteem economically among the poor). Black children were less
deprived parents feel toward their children, likely than their white counterparts to attrib-
and reduce adolescents' exposure to parental ute poverfy and wealth to fete and, among
punitiveness brought on by economic diffi- those from middle-class backgrounds, less
culties. Adolescent employment may be a likely than white children to deny the possi-
source of age and sex differences in children's bilify of changing poverfy. Nonetheless, with
vulnerabilify to harsh parenting, since youn- increasing age, both black and white children
ger children and females are less likely to be (and children of all social classes) increasingly
employed outside the home than older chil- legitimized economic inequalify by reference
dren and males. The value of employment to individual differences in effort, abilify, in-
among today's adolescents has been seriously telligence, and personalify. What socialization
questioned (Greenberger & Steinberg, 1986), and/or cognitive factors underlie this develop-
but the evidence conceming its effects on mental path and departures from it? What
black adolescents is too sketchy and conflict- specific factors explain race differences in
ing to draw any firm conclusions (Crowley, children's explanations of economic in-
1984; D'Amico & Baker, 1984; Gottfredson, equalify?
1985; Williams & Komblum, 1985).
These questions raise the broader and
The dramatic race differences in the geo- largely unexplored issue of the strategies
graphical context and duration of poverfy used by children of varying ages to cope with
have far-reaching implications for the design transitory and persistent poverfy. It has been
and interpretation of future studies comparing suggested that repeated failure at active cop-
blacks and whites, the most frequent fype of ing, that is, failure to remove the stressors
study inclusive of blacks in the field of child fk>m one's life, can result in feelings of pow-
development (McLoyd & Randolph, 1984). erlessness and in the use of more palliative
Failure to take into account the fact that poor forms of coping that seek only to dull the real-
blacks are far more likely than poor whites to ify of the stressors (Barbarin, 1983; Belle,
live in poor, isolated neighborhoods lacking 1984). We assume that this process can oper-
myriad resources favorable to parenting and ate among children and adolescents as well.
children's development may lead researchers Cognitive and behavioral pattems known as
to conclude erroneously that differences be- "playing it cool" and "getting over" may rep-
tween blacks and whites (e.g., attitudes, psy- resent ways black youth cope with unremit-
chological distress) are due to stable psycho- ting economic hardship (Gibbs, 1989). What
logical characteristics or family factors when, cognitive schema increase the ability of black
in fact, they are rooted in contextual or neigh- children to maintain positive emotional func-
borhood differences. Race-comparative stud- tioning in the face of severe economic depri-
ies that ignore race differences in the chronic- vation, and what are the antecedents of these
ify of poverfy may be invalid for similar schema? Is the link between mental health
reasons. At one time, disaggregating race and and causal attribution for one's economic
class and asing standardized rather than difficulfy as strong in children as research has
wholly subjective measures of socioeconomic shown it to be in adults? Within the lower
status were taken as measures of progress in class, in particular, peers have often been
race comparative research (McLoyd & Ran- viewed more as hindrances than facilitators of
dolph, 1985). Recent advances in our under- positive development, yet peers often assist
standing of poverfy among blacks and whites children through difficult transitions toward
have underscored the serious limitations of positive outcomes. This largely perjorative
 Vonnie C. McLoyd 339
perspective needs to be counterbalanced by lessness; Relationships among stress, attribu-
study of peers as potential sources of support tions, and mental health outcomes. In J. Jack-
for black children experiencing economic son & P. Bowman (Eds.), Coping with stress in
hardship. Research on the nature of the peer black America. Newbury Park, CA; Sage.
networks of resilient but economically de- Bames, E. J. (1972). The black community as a
prived children could provide important pre- source of positive self-concept for black chil-
scriptive information. A related issue in need dren; A theoretical perspective. In R. Jones
of investigation is the relation between peer (Ed.), Black psychology (pp. 166-192). New
group and family processes under conditions York; Harper & Row.
of poverfy and economic loss. Bartz, K., & Levine, E. (1978). Child rearing by
black parents; A description and comparison to
Even during the early years, poor black Anglo and Chicano parents. Journal of Mar-
males show more social maladaptation than riage and the Family, 40, 709-719.
their black female counterparts (Kellam et al., Baumrind, D. (1972). An exploratory study of
1977; Langner et al., 1970). We do not under- socialization efifects on black children; Some
stand the reasons for this. Is it because boys black-wbite comparisons. Child Development,
receive less support than girls from parents, 43, 261-267.
peers, and members of the parents' networks? Belle, D. (1982). Social ties and social support. In
How do sex differences in child temperament D. Belle (Ed.), Lives in stress: Women and
influence black parents' treatment of their depression (pp. 133-144). Beverly Hills, CA;
children? Do mothers of boys receive less Sage.
parenting support than mothers of girls? Belle, D. (1984). Inequality and mental health;
These issues need to be studied in both two- Low-income and minority women. In L.
parent and female-headed black families. The Walker (Ed.), Women and mental health policy
adage that black mothers "love their sons (pp. 135-150). Beverly Hills, CA; Sage.
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firm, consistent, but supportive disciplinea 335.
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found conducive to positive socioemotional instability: A review of the evidence. Madison;
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