Unemployment, parental distress and youth emotional well-being: The moderation roles of parent-youth relationship and financial deprivation

We investigated, in a sample of 112 unemployed parents of adolescents aged 10-19 years, the links between parental distress and change in youth emotional problems related to parental unemployment, and the moderation roles of parent-youth relationship and financial deprivation. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and correlations. Further, simple moderation, additive moderation, and moderated moderation models of regression were performed to analyze the effects of parental distress, parent-youth relationship and financial deprivation in predicting change in youth emotional problems related to parental unemployment. Results show that parental distress moderated by parent-youth relationship predicted levels of change in youth emotional problems related to parental unemployment. This study provides evidence that during job loss, parental distress is linked to youth emotional well-being and that parent-youth relationships play an important moderation role. This raises the importance of further researching parental distress impacts on youth well-being, especially during periods of high unemployment rates.

Coping as a moderator of the influence of economic stressors on psychological health

Since 2008, there has been a decline in the economy of several European countries, including Portugal. In the literature, it is emphasized that periods of economic uncertainty propitiate the appearance of mental health problems and diminish populations’ well-being. The aim of the present study, with 729 Portuguese participants, 33.9% (n=247) males and 66.1% (n=482) females with an average age of 37 years old (M=36.99; SD=12.81), was to examine the relationship between economic hardship, financial threat, and financial well-being (i.e., economic stressors) and stress, anxiety, and depression (i.e., psychological health indicators), as well as to test the moderation effect of coping in the aforementioned relationship. To achieve these goals, a cross-sectional design was implemented and structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to analyze the obtained data. Our results underline that coping affects the relationship between economic stressors and psychological health since subjects with lower coping levels are more vulnerable to economic stress factors than those with higher coping levels. The moderation effect was more evident in the relationships between economic hardship and stress, anxiety, and depression. The main implications of this study are presented, as well as its’ limitations and suggestions for future research.