Work Schedule Problems and Parenting Stress among Unmarried Welfare Mothers with Very Young Children

Eunjeong Kim, University of Texas at Austin
Yolanda C. Padilla, University of Texas at Austin
Seung-Eun Song, University of Texas at Austin

Background and Significance: Although poverty research in the United States has focused on poor unmarried mothers, little attention has been paid to their non-economic well-being, specifically their psychological and physical well-being as parents. Given that public debates on poor unmarried mothers have consistently emphasized the family wage-earner role of these mothers, most studies on this population have focused on poor unmarried mothers¡¯ economic circumstances, such as their employment rate, barriers to employment, and job stability. However, empirical studies reveal that a major challenge poor single mothers face in daily life is the lack of support needed to fulfill their parental role, a deficiency that may be directly associated to significant parenting stress, which in turn negatively impacts other mental health problems. Regarding psychological well being of poor unmarried mothers with infants, mandatory work requirements imposed by welfare legislation may affect the parenting stress of unmarried mothers with a welfare history. This has become even more of a concern since the 1996 welfare reform, because a majority of women on welfare are now required to work after their children are one year old, rather than close to preschool age as was previously the rule. Currently, welfare mothers should start work regardless of the adverse conditions of low-wage jobs. Inflexibility of work schedule is a major characteristic of low-wage jobs, which most poor unmarried mothers could obtain. Due to this characteristic of their employment, poor single mothers may experience significant time and role constraints from working outside the home. Moreover, the potential stress due to the conflicts between work roles and family roles may produce more serious problems for poor unmarried mothers than for middle-class married mothers because poor unmarried mothers tend to lack alternative resources for parenting. Given that the current welfare reform regulation requires a majority of poor unmarried mothers to work outside the home, and given that work schedule may have substantial impacts on psychological well-being, it is critical for welfare policy makers to examine the possible influence of poor unmarried mothers¡¯ employment and work schedule on their psychological well-being as parents. This analysis will provide information about mothers now subject to the new mandatory work regulation. Research Purpose: This study analyzes the potential relationship between work schedule stress of unmarried mothers with at least one infant and their degree of parenting stress, focusing on moderating effect of welfare history. This study separately tests the effects of work schedule stress on parenting stress by considering whether or not unmarried mothers currently receive welfare or have ever received welfare. That is, this study compares poor unmarried mothers with a welfare history to unmarried mothers without a welfare history, in order to examine specific situations that unmarried mothers with a welfare history may face in terms of parenting stress. This study takes into account the key demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of poor unmarried families: 1) family background factors ¨C income-to-poverty ratio, parental relationship status, and social support; 2) maternal characteristics ¨C race/ethnicity, education, age, and subjective health; 3) child characteristics ¨C gender and maternal reports of subjective child health. Methods: Data -This study utilizes the data set from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a nationally representative longitudinal survey focusing on unmarried parents. Most relevant to this proposed research, the Fragile Families Study also focuses on acquiring in-depth knowledge about the parenting practices of these unwed families. Given that few nationally-based datasets provide such detailed information on parenting-related factors among unwed parents, the Fragile Families dataset offers an exceptional opportunity to analyze the wide range of potential explanatory factors that may influence both parenting stress and work schedule stress of poor unmarried mothers with infants. This study is based on both baseline data (collected at the time of childbirth) and 12-month follow-up data. The study sample is composed of unmarried mothers with a welfare history. In a separate analysis, this study compares unmarried mothers with a welfare history to those who have never received welfare. Methodology: Parenting stress is ascertained using an ¡°Aggravation in Parenting¡± scale from CDS-P (Child Development Supplement-Parenting), which measures parenting stress resulting from changes in employment, income, and other life factors. Work schedule problems are measured by asking all employed mothers whether it is difficult to deal with child care problems during working hours and whether they have enough flexibility in their work schedule to handle family needs (see Table1.Definition of Variables). Given that the outcome variable of this study (parenting stress) is a continuous variable, a total of 3052 unmarried mothers are analyzed using an ordinary least squares (OLS) regression model. This study¡¯s analytical approach is based on a progressive modeling procedure (Mirowsky, 1999) and begins by estimating the bivariate relationship between work schedule problems and parenting stress. Subsequent models add variables to control for the potential effects of family background factors, maternal characteristics, and child characteristics. Next, this study separately tests the effects of maternal employment on parenting stress based on unmarried mothers¡¯ welfare history in order to specify the association between maternal employment and maternal parenting stress among unmarried mothers with a welfare history. Separate models not only give a clear indication of the relationship between maternal employment and maternal parenting stress according to welfare history, but also reveal the effects of all of the variables in the model specific to each group. These specific coefficients of each variable for the mothers with a welfare history are compared to counterpart coefficients for those without a welfare history. Results: Table 2 displays the percent distribution (and means) of parenting stress and all covariates by maternal welfare history. Unmarried mothers with welfare history are more likely to show the higher level of parenting stress and work schedule problems than those without welfare history. Unmarried mothers who have welfare history are more likely to be older, have less than a high school diploma, have higher poverty rates, and report poorer health than those without welfare history. They, also, are less likely to cohabit, expect the lower level of social support, and rate their child health as poorer than those without welfare history. Table 3 presents the estimated net effects of work schedule stress, maternal welfare history, and background characteristics on unmarried mothers¡¯ parenting stress in the total sample. First, a simple bivariate model (Model 1) shows work schedule problems are very powerful predictor for unmarried mothers¡¯ parenting stress. Unmarried mothers who have work schedule problems in terms of child-care problems and inflexibility of work schedule indicate considerably higher level of parenting stress. Welfare history has statistically significant effect on maternal parenting stress, independent of work schedule stress (Model 2). Model 3 through 5 show the independent effect of each set of predictor variables on maternal parenting stress with work schedule stress and welfare history. Compared to mothers living above more than 200% of poverty line, those mothers living under 100% report significantly higher level of parenting stress. Parental relationship status also has a significant impact on maternal parenting stress, with not cohabiting mothers showing much higher parenting stress than mothers who cohabit. Mothers who report better health for both themselves and their children show considerably lower level of parenting stress than those who report poorer health. Compared to non-Hispanic whites, non-Hispanic blacks reveal higher level of parenting stress. Mothers who can expect other people to provide place to live when they ask show significantly lower level of parenting stress. Also, younger mothers show higher level of parenting stress. Separate analyses of unmarried mothers with welfare history and those without welfare history are provided in Table 4 and Table 5 respectively. Focusing on the mothers with welfare history (Table 4), we see that work schedule problems have very strong effect on employed mothers¡¯ parenting stress. A comparison of the separate models reveals several interesting patterns between unmarried mothers with welfare history and those without welfare history. Although work schedule problems significantly associated with parenting stress for both unmarried mothers with welfare history and those without welfare history (only child care problem), work schedule problems are more important for the parenting stress of unmarried mothers with welfare history than for those without welfare history. This result suggests that unmarried mothers with welfare history are in much more vulnerable position than those without welfare history in terms of the influence of work schedule problems on parenting stress. Also, contrary to the great importance of parental relationship variable and maternal race/ethnicity for explaining the parenting stress of unmarried mothers without welfare history, these two variables do not have significant impacts on that of unmarried mothers with welfare history. Implications: The findings from this study suggest that flexible time schedule may be very important for reducing parenting stress of poor unmarried mothers with infants, especially for those with welfare history. Having difficulties in dealing with child care problems during working hours and not having enough flexibility in their work schedule to handle family needs greatly increase unmarried welfare mothers¡¯ parenting stress. Therefore, working conditions, rather than being employed or not, should be considered when designing well-targeted, successful interventions for improving psychological well being of unmarried mothers with welfare history, who now constitute one of the most vulnerable populations in terms of the 1996 welfare reform.