Economic hardship, family relationships, and adolescent distress: an evaluation of a stress-distress mediation model in mother-daughter and mother-son dyads

This study evaluated a stress-distress mediation model of the relationships among economic hardship, maternal financial strain, maternal marital happiness, the parent-child relationships, and adolescent distress in a group of 188 sixth and 210 eighth graders and their mothers. The model predicted that economic hardship would increase maternal financial strain which was predicted to lead to more distress in the adolescent children by decreasing the mothers' marital happiness and the quality of the mother-child relationship. Separate latent variable path analyses with partial least squares (LVPLS) were conducted for the mother-daughter and the mother-son dyads. The results supported the hypothesized paths between economic hardship, mothers' financial strain, the mother-child relationship, and adolescent distress in both the mother-daughter and mother-son dyads.