Key Questions Answered
Question: Does poverty increase mental health problems among parents and children?
A: This study found no evidence that poverty increases the link between parental anxiety and mental health problems in children.
Question: What was surprising about these results?
A: Despite the overall higher rates of mental health problems in low-income groups, poverty has not moderated the internal family dynamics of mental health
Question: What do the results of the intervention mean?
A: Mental health interventions should target all families, regardless of income, with prevention efforts prioritized in low-income settings due to higher prevalence.
Summary: A large-scale longitudinal study refutes the hypothesis that poverty exacerbates the link between parental distress and children’s mental health problems. Researchers using advanced analyses discovered that financial hardship does not influence the relationship between parental distress and children’s mental health.
Although mental health problems remain more common in low-income families, the underlying dynamics of parent-child relationships appear to be similar across income levels. These findings suggest that mental health support should be accessible to everyone, regardless of socioeconomic differences.
Important facts:
- No nurturing effect: Poverty did not moderate the relationship between parent and child mental health problems.
- Large sample: Data from over 10,000 children across multiple developmental stages were analyzed.
- Universal impact: Children are directly affected by their parents’ mental health challenges, no matter the family’s income.
Source: SWPS University
Can poverty worsen mental health problems in younger family members?
An international study involving SWPS University reveals that family mental health problems occur across all income levels, not just among those facing financial hardship.
Traditionally, poverty—defined as insufficient resources to meet basic needs—has been viewed as a key risk factor for children’s mental health. Higher levels of poverty are often linked to behavioral issues and depression in young people.
To explore this further, researchers examined the psychological mechanisms behind the link. The Family Stress Model (FSM) suggests that financial strain creates parental stress, which in turn undermines parenting and contributes to behavioral problems in children.
Another theory—the stress perspective model—argues that poverty may amplify the impact of other risks on psychopathology. Studies also support the hypothesis of a link between parental and child mental health problems.
Does family income affect mental health?
Evidence indicates that children in low-income households face an elevated risk of mental health difficulties. However, the reasons remain poorly understood, partly because much of the existing research on socioeconomic status and family mental health is methodologically weak.
“The research provides no information on whether family income (as a measure of poverty) influences the correlation between parental mental health and children’s mental health.
“This research helps close a critical gap in our knowledge of how financial hardship affects parents’ and children’s mental health,” explains Agata Dębowska, PhD, a psychology professor at SWPS University in Warsaw and co-author of the study.
The research team, which included scholars from the Universities of Sheffield, Ankara, Lancaster, and SWPS, examined how low socioeconomic status influences the connection between parental distress and child mental health, both within families and across different households. They hypothesized that this link would be stronger in families with lower incomes compared to those with higher incomes.
To account for developmental differences, the models were adjusted separately for boys and girls. Using advanced statistical methods (ALT-SR: Latent Autoregressive Trajectory Modeling with Structured Residuals), the researchers analyzed data from the UK’s Millennium Cohort Study, which has followed the same group of children from infancy to adolescence (ages 9 months, 3, 5, 7, 11, 14, and 17). The study included 10,309 participants in total—5,161 girls and 5,148 boys.
The findings challenge prevailing assumptions. Contrary to predictions from the context model of stress, poverty did not moderate the relationship between parental distress and child psychopathology at either the within-family or between-family level. This suggests that parental mental health difficulties affect children independently of socioeconomic status.
The findings challenge current assumptions that poverty exacerbates the effects of parental anxiety on children’s mental health.
“These findings refute the notion that financial hardship depletes an individual’s resources to cope with other difficulties in their life. “Moreover, our findings diverge from prior meta-analyses indicating that the link between maternal depression and children’s mental health problems is stronger in low-income families,” notes Dębowska.
The researchers see a possible explanation for these discrepancies in the new study’s rigorous methodology. “Our results contradict previous meta-analyses, which suggest that the link between maternal depression and children’s mental health problems is stronger in low-income families,” explains Dębowska.
The researchers believe these differences may stem from the more rigorous methodology applied in the new study. They also point out that parental mental health issues may exert direct and lasting effects on children—for example, through reduced emotional availability—regardless of external factors such as poverty.
Implications for intervention:
Clarifying the true role of poverty in family dynamics is crucial for designing more effective support and intervention strategies. Such insights can help ensure that families facing both financial hardship and mental health challenges receive better-targeted resources and care.
There is still evidence that mental health problems are more common in socially disadvantaged groups. Therefore, prevention and treatment efforts should continue to focus primarily on low-income groups, the researchers emphasize.
They also suggest that if the effects of parental distress are consistent regardless of income level, targeted interventions to promote children’s mental health should be implemented across all socioeconomic classes.
The article describing the study, titled “Does poverty affect family relationships between children and parents’ mental health?”, was published in Current Psychology. Here’s a polished version of your author list formatted for clarity (you can use it in research summaries, press releases, or academic write-ups):
Authors:
Zeliha Ezgi Sreibaz (University of Sheffield; Ankara University),
Lydia Gabriela Spear (University of Lancaster),
Paul Norman (University of Sheffield),
Agata Dębowska (SWPS University),
Richard Rowe (University of Sheffield).
About this poverty, mental health, and neurodevelopment research news
Author: Marta Danowska-Kisiel
Source: SWPS University
Contact: Marta Danowska-Kisiel – SWPS University
Image: The image is credited to StackZone Neuro
Original Research: Open access.
“Does poverty moderate within-family relations between children’s and parents’ mental health?” by Agata Debowska et al. Current Psychology
Abstract
Does poverty affect the mental health of family relationships between children and parents?
Children from low-income families are more prone to psychopathology, but the reasons for this are unknown.
Researchers suggest that poverty may magnify the negative effects of parental stress on children’s mental wellbeing.
Previous relevant studies often had cross-sectional designs or relied on traditional cross-sectional panel designs, which have methodological disadvantages.
Models that distinguish between within-family and between-family effects may lead to more meaningful results. Until now, no study has investigated how poverty moderates the relationship between parent and child mental health within families. This study addresses that gap by examining whether these relationships differ between families living in poverty and those with higher economic resources.
Multigroup autoregressive trajectory models with structured residuals were fitted to analyze data from the Millennium Cohort Study collected at ages 3, 5, 7, 11, 14, and 17 on a representative sample of the UK population (N = 10,309; poverty ~32%).
The results showed that the relationships between parental distress and child psychopathology were not moderated by poverty at the between-family or within-family levels.
This study challenges models that suggest that effects are stronger in the context of poverty, such as the stress context model.
The findings therefore suggest that policymakers should prioritize addressing the links between parental and child mental health problems at all levels of poverty.
