Parental warmth buffers the effect of socioeconomic status on resilience during late childhood: evidence from a nationally representative birth cohort

According to the Family Stress Model (FSM), chronic exposure to economic hardships bolsters risks of maladaptive development in children via the mechanism of parenting. Specifically, in face of later adversities, children of lowersocioeconomic status (SES) are found to exhibit less resilience than w...

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Main Authors: Yu, Meryl, Kee, Michelle, Meaney, Michael, Law, Evelyn, Eriksson, Johan Gunnar, Chen, Helen Yu, Setoh, Peipei
Other Authors: School of Social Sciences
Format: Working Paper
Language:English
Published: 2024
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Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/176111
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Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
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spelling sg-ntu-dr.10356-1761112024-06-02T15:30:47Z Parental warmth buffers the effect of socioeconomic status on resilience during late childhood: evidence from a nationally representative birth cohort Yu, Meryl Kee, Michelle Meaney, Michael Law, Evelyn Eriksson, Johan Gunnar Chen, Helen Yu Setoh, Peipei School of Social Sciences Division of Psychology National University of Singapore KK Women's and Children's Hospital Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences, A*STAR Social Sciences According to the Family Stress Model (FSM), chronic exposure to economic hardships bolsters risks of maladaptive development in children via the mechanism of parenting. Specifically, in face of later adversities, children of lowersocioeconomic status (SES) are found to exhibit less resilience than well-off peers, but the exact parenting mechanisms remain undiscerned. Guided by the FSM, we examine parental care and parental overprotection as candidate mediators in the relationship linking SES to resilience in late childhood. We used longitudinal data from 293 children-mother dyads (48% girls) from Singapore’s largest birth cohort. A composite SES score was derived by averaging the standardized scores of maternal and paternal education and household income, reported by mothers at recruitment. Children reported resilience at age 10.5 with Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale, and parental care and overprotection at age 8.5 with Parental Bonding Instrument. Linear regression revealed that SES was positively predictive of resilience, B=4.04(1.10), p<.001, controlling for child gender. Parallel mediation analysis with PROCESS (Hayes, 2017) and 10,000 bootstrap samples was run to test indirect effects of SES on resilience through parental care and overprotection, controlling for child gender. Parental care was a significant mediator, B=1.98, SE=0.56, 95%CI[0.95, 3.18], but parental overprotection was not, B=0.18, SE=0.21, 95%CI[-0.21,0.67]. Total mediation effect was significant, B=2.17, SE=0.58, 95%CI[1.10, 3.38]. SES was no longer a significant predictor when mediators were added, B=2.08, SE=1.20, p=.08, suggesting full mediation. We offer empirical evidence that parental care is a salient pathway linking SES to child resilience. Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) Ministry of Education (MOE) Ministry of Health (MOH) National Medical Research Council (NMRC) National Research Foundation (NRF) 2024-05-31T01:01:21Z 2024-05-31T01:01:21Z 2024 Working Paper Yu, M., Kee, M., Meaney, M., Law, E., Eriksson, J. G., Chen, H. Y. & Setoh, P. (2024). Parental warmth buffers the effect of socioeconomic status on resilience during late childhood: evidence from a nationally representative birth cohort. Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. https://hdl.handle.net/10356/176111 https://hdl.handle.net/10356/176111 en NUHSRO/2021/093/NUSMed/13/LOA RG39/22 OF-LCG; MOH-000504 © 2024 The Author(s). All rights reserved. application/pdf
institution Nanyang Technological University
building NTU Library
continent Asia
country Singapore
Singapore
content_provider NTU Library
collection DR-NTU
language English
topic Social Sciences
spellingShingle Social Sciences
Yu, Meryl
Kee, Michelle
Meaney, Michael
Law, Evelyn
Eriksson, Johan Gunnar
Chen, Helen Yu
Setoh, Peipei
Parental warmth buffers the effect of socioeconomic status on resilience during late childhood: evidence from a nationally representative birth cohort
description According to the Family Stress Model (FSM), chronic exposure to economic hardships bolsters risks of maladaptive development in children via the mechanism of parenting. Specifically, in face of later adversities, children of lowersocioeconomic status (SES) are found to exhibit less resilience than well-off peers, but the exact parenting mechanisms remain undiscerned. Guided by the FSM, we examine parental care and parental overprotection as candidate mediators in the relationship linking SES to resilience in late childhood. We used longitudinal data from 293 children-mother dyads (48% girls) from Singapore’s largest birth cohort. A composite SES score was derived by averaging the standardized scores of maternal and paternal education and household income, reported by mothers at recruitment. Children reported resilience at age 10.5 with Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale, and parental care and overprotection at age 8.5 with Parental Bonding Instrument. Linear regression revealed that SES was positively predictive of resilience, B=4.04(1.10), p<.001, controlling for child gender. Parallel mediation analysis with PROCESS (Hayes, 2017) and 10,000 bootstrap samples was run to test indirect effects of SES on resilience through parental care and overprotection, controlling for child gender. Parental care was a significant mediator, B=1.98, SE=0.56, 95%CI[0.95, 3.18], but parental overprotection was not, B=0.18, SE=0.21, 95%CI[-0.21,0.67]. Total mediation effect was significant, B=2.17, SE=0.58, 95%CI[1.10, 3.38]. SES was no longer a significant predictor when mediators were added, B=2.08, SE=1.20, p=.08, suggesting full mediation. We offer empirical evidence that parental care is a salient pathway linking SES to child resilience.
author2 School of Social Sciences
author_facet School of Social Sciences
Yu, Meryl
Kee, Michelle
Meaney, Michael
Law, Evelyn
Eriksson, Johan Gunnar
Chen, Helen Yu
Setoh, Peipei
format Working Paper
author Yu, Meryl
Kee, Michelle
Meaney, Michael
Law, Evelyn
Eriksson, Johan Gunnar
Chen, Helen Yu
Setoh, Peipei
author_sort Yu, Meryl
title Parental warmth buffers the effect of socioeconomic status on resilience during late childhood: evidence from a nationally representative birth cohort
title_short Parental warmth buffers the effect of socioeconomic status on resilience during late childhood: evidence from a nationally representative birth cohort
title_full Parental warmth buffers the effect of socioeconomic status on resilience during late childhood: evidence from a nationally representative birth cohort
title_fullStr Parental warmth buffers the effect of socioeconomic status on resilience during late childhood: evidence from a nationally representative birth cohort
title_full_unstemmed Parental warmth buffers the effect of socioeconomic status on resilience during late childhood: evidence from a nationally representative birth cohort
title_sort parental warmth buffers the effect of socioeconomic status on resilience during late childhood: evidence from a nationally representative birth cohort
publishDate 2024
url https://hdl.handle.net/10356/176111
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