Perceived Economic Strain and Psychological Well-Being

Abstract

This study primarily aims to explore the association between perceived economic strain, parent-adolescent relational qualities and psychological well-being and to investigate the dyadic parental relationships during early adolescence. A total of 414 adolescents between the ages of 10 and 14 (M= 12.58, SD = .90) from three different socioeconomic status groups were included. Adolescents from low socioeconomic status families reported more parental conflict and in terms of dyadic relations, both boys and girls perceive more positive communication and less conflict with their fathers. Our findings have shown that the quality of adolescents’ relationships with parents partially mediate the association between perceived economic strain and psychological well-being. Although findings related to dyadic relations indicated more positive relationships with fathers than with mothers, it seems that the mediational role of maternal outcome is relatively more powerful on the association between perceived economic strain and the life satisfaction and self-worth of Turkish adolescents.

Keywords

parental relations perceived economic strain global self-worth life satisfaction

The family stress model, describing the processes through which economic strain influences child and adolescent adjustment, has gained wide acceptance since the 1990s and assumptions about this model continue to be a topic of interest. It has been proposed that the experience of economic strain is psychologically stressful for parents, which undermines the quality of family relationships and leads to poorer child adjustment (Conger et al., 1992; 1993; Conger, Rueter & Conger, 2000). Although the literature has provided ample evidence that parental economic stress has a detrimental influence on child and adolescent functioning via its effects on parents, not much is known about the relationship between economic hardship and the stressful experiences of the adolescents themselves. Only a few studies have examined cross-sectionally how adolescents themselves cope with economic stress although it has been linked to adolescent adjustment problems. For example, McLoyd, Jayaratne, Ceballo and Borquez (1994) included adolescents’ perceptions of family economic hardship in their model and showed that adolescent perceptions were linked to certain adjustment problems over and above family-level variables. More recently, Wadsworth and Compas (2002) examined the associations among family SES, perceived economic stress, family conflict (interparental and parent-adolescent conflict), and coping responses. They found that family conflict partially mediated the relationship between perceived economic strain and adolescent adjustment, suggesting that economic hardship disrupts both types of relationships and coping mediated the relationship between family conflict and adjustment. These two models did not differ in terms of the age or gender of the adolescents. Dmitrieva, Chen, Greenberger and Gil-Rivas (2004) investigated the role of parent-adolescent relationships in mediating the association between family related negative life events (e.g., parental divorce, conflict between the parents and family financial difficulties) and adolescent depressive symptoms and problem behaviors among eleventh graders from the United States, China, Korea and the Czech Republic. Perceived parental involvement and parent-adolescent conflict mediated the link between family related life events and adolescent depressed moods. There were no gender differences in the magnitude of associations among the variables in these cultures.

In sum, there is considerable evidence that family related negative life events have a potential effect on adolescent adjustment and a few recent studies have shown that the quality of adolescents’ relations with parents mediate this association. We did not access any research directly investigating the mediating role of parent-adolescent relationships within the framework of the family stress model in Turkey, an exception being research based on this model to examine the relationship between economic hardship, family economic strain and marital problems using cross-sectional data including married women and men living in urban areas (Aytaç & Rankin, 2009). Different aspects of parent-adolescent relationships have been studied as a function of age, gender, socioeconomic status, pubertal status or pubertal timing in limited research in Turkey. A study conducted with high school students found that both boys and girls from three different socioeconomic status groups perceived their mothers as being more communicative than their fathers (Köker, Evrengöl & Canat, 1994). In another study, when 13- to 18-year-old adolescents were asked, “with whom they spoke the most frequently,” “with whom they enjoyed speaking,” and “to whom they felt the closest,” generally the mother or a friend of the same sex was given at the top of their lists (Hortaçsu, 1989). The results of a study involving 12- to 21-year-old subjects, one fourth of whom were employed, also revealed that the family member with whom they most often shared their problems and felt the closest to was “the mother” (Çuhadaroğlu et al., 2004). Another study, which investigated 14- to 18-year-old high school students to determine the impact of perceived pubertal timing on parent-adolescent relationships, indicated that early maturers reported more disagreement with their parents and also reported more negative communication with their fathers than on-time maturers (Güre, Uçanok & Sayıl, 2006). Although different samples and methods were used in these studies, it seems that adolescents generally have more positive relationships with their mothers than with their fathers. Consistent with much of the empirical and theoretical literature on parent-adolescent conflict, Turkish adolescents frequently reported conflict with parents about school success and homework, behavior towards parents, relationships with friends, clothes, hair style and dating. Conflict has also been found to vary as a function of both parents’ and adolescents’ gender, reflecting traditional gender role stereotypes. Conflicts about clothes, hair style and dating were reported more by girls compared with boys and it was found that parents, especially fathers, were more lenient toward their sons (Erkan, 1984; Oskay, 1985; Sayıl, Uçanok & Güre, 2002). In view of existing findings, it is impossible to infer conclusively whether adolescents are more likely to have conflict with or communicate well with their mothers or their fathers or whether this likelihood is influenced by the sex of the adolescent during this transition period.

The emphasis of recent studies has shifted from adolescent problem behaviors and distress to healthy adolescent development with the focus on the development of positive, adaptive qualities. Researchers try to identify the protective factors that enable the youth in high-risk environments to reach their full potentials (e.g., Larson, 2000). Furthermore, there are more recent studies indicating that mothers and fathers independently play a role in different developmental outcomes of adolescents (e.g., McKinney & Renk, 2008). Taking these as our starting point, in the present study we attempted to examine the direct and indirect effects (via maternal and paternal communication and conflict) of adolescent reported economic stress on psychological well-being in terms of life satisfaction and global self-worth. Previously, researchers in Turkey have generally used adolescent problem behavior and distress as indicators of adolescent adjustment while examining the association between negative life events and adolescent outcome (e.g., Bahçıvan-Saydam & Gençöz, 2005; Peksaygılı & Güre, 2008; Uyanık-Balat & Akman, 2006), whereas we have used life satisfaction and global self-worth as indicators of adolescent psychological well-being. Self-worth is an important construct for the adolescent’s well-being and psychosocial adjustment (Harter, 1999). Although widely studied in adult literature, quality of life and life satisfaction in children and adolescents has only more recently drawn attention (Huebner, 2004). Research on life satisfaction, an aspect of well-being, supports the contention that life satisfaction is associated with positive social and emotional functioning in children and adolescents (Huebner, 1997).

It has been proposed that the subjective experience of economic hardship can have a greater influence on parenting and adolescent outcomes than the objective experience of financial difficulties (Conger & Donellan, 2007; Conger et. al., 1992; 1993; McLoyd et al., 1994), so we investigated the adolescents’ own perceptions in their adaptation to family economic hardship.

Taking into consideration these findings, there are two aims for this research: to investigate whether there are any differences in dyadic relationships as a function of gender, grade and socioeconomic status and to explore the mediating role of parent-adolescent relationships from the adolescent perspective. In the present study, we aimed to investigate dyadic relationships in terms of communication including reciprocal intimacy, closeness and emotional support and the conflict over everyday issues typically characterizing the parent-adolescent relationship during early adolescence. Based on the two main aims and the related literature, the following hypotheses were tested in the present study:

Socioeconomic status is an important contextual variable that should be taken into account by researchers studying the quality of relations between parents and adolescents. Structural changes in the family such as economic strain, both chronic and sudden, are associated with more negative parent-adolescent relationships, including greater parent-adolescent conflict and more negative emotions, as well as harsh and punitive parenting (Conger et al., 1992, 1993; Conger et al., 2002; Grant et al., 2003). Within the framework of the first aim of the study, we expected that adolescents from low SES would report more negative parental communication and more conflict than adolescents from middle and high SES. With reference to gender differences in economic disadvantage, several studies have reported that a family’s economic hardship has a greater negative impact on boys than on girls. Connections between persistent economic hardship and psychosocial adjustment were more pronounced for boys than girls (Bolger, Patterson, Thompson & Kupersmidt, 1995; Huston et al., 2001). In view of existing findings, we expected that boys would report more negative parental communication and conflict than girls. In terms of the impact of poverty on parent-child relationships, we also expected that 8th grade students of low socioeconomic status would report more negative communication and conflict with their parents than 6th and 7th grade students. It has been proposed that economic disadvantage places adolescents at increased risk of exposure to conflict in the family, especially at the end of early adolescence (Conger et al., 1992, 1993). Finally, we were unable to develop any specific hypotheses related to dyadic relations due to the limited and inconclusive findings in Turkey.

As indicated in Figure 1, we constructed a model of associations among perceived family economic hardship, parent-adolescent relationships, and adolescent outcomes. We proposed that parent-adolescent communication (communication with mother and father) and parent-adolescent conflict (conflict with mother and father) mediate the association between economic hardship and the psychological well-being of adolescents (life satisfaction and global self-worth). Because of increasing evidence that demonstrates cross-cultural similarities in the developmental process and the fundamental structure of parent-adolescent relationships, overall the proposed model was expected to comply with the data of other countries (e.g., Greenberger & Chen, 1996; Steinberg & Morris, 2001; Dmitrieva et al., 2004). In our study, different from the above-mentioned research, we proposed that paternal and maternal measures would reveal different patterns of mediational effects. Especially since the 1950s, Turkey has been undergoing a rapid urbanization process, and today it has considerable social and cultural variation, with modern and traditional ways of life existing side by side. Kağıtçıbaşı (2005, 2007) reformulates the individualism-collectivism dimensions in her Family Change Model and implies that psychological interdependence is needed and preserved even in the face of rapid urbanization and modernization in Turkey. Despite this change, mothers still tend to be loving, warm and responsive towards their children and this does not change due to education level or social contexts like traditionalism and modernism, as has been shown in previous studies (Kağıtçıbaşı 1970, 1973; Yağmurlu & Sanson, 2009). In other words, warmth and emotional dependence are important characteristics of Turkish mothers, independent of family structure, education level or the socioeconomic status of parents (Kağıtçıbaşı, 2007). Therefore, both communication and conflict with the mother were expected to be more strongly related to life satisfaction and global self-worth in our sample. Based on prior studies, we also propose that economic strain may lead to conflict and disrupt overall communication between parents and adolescents, especially concerning money issues, due to changing needs and increased expectations in this critical transition period between childhood and adulthood. Thus, we expected that perceived economic strain would have a negative direct effect on parental communication but a positive direct effect on parental conflict.

Figure 1.

Hypothesized relations between perceived economic strain, parent-adolescent relationship, and adolescent psychological well-being.

In a developing country like Turkey, the differences in socioeconomic status have an effect on perceptions of economic strength, especially in urban areas. Large cities and metropolises in Turkey consist of various social groups and families with different values and life styles mainly due to the dense internal migration and rapid social change (cited in Nacak, Yağmurlu, Durgel & van de Vijver, 2011). Adolescents from various socioeconomic levels living in metropolises like Ankara and Istanbul tend to compare themselves with others around them and their feelings regarding their living conditions are affected by this. There is considerable evidence for association between economic strain and psychological outcomes (e.g., Conger & Donellan, 2007; McLeod & Shanahan, 1993). Based on the above reasons, we predicted that adolescents who perceived high economic strain would exhibit lower life satisfaction and lower self-esteem.

We were unable to specify any hypotheses for boys and girls due to the lack of gender differences in the aforementioned studies (Dmitrieva et al., 2004) and insufficient knowledge regarding the proposed relationships in Turkey.

Method

Participants

Participants were selected from five different schools in Ankara to give a diverse sample in terms of socioeconomic status. SES was based on the type of school (private school, public school and public school outside the city limits) that the adolescents attended. In order to access a minimum of 10 boys and 10 girls at each grade level, we selected five schools representing urban (low-middle-high class) adolescents. Four of the schools were from the central region of Ankara. The two public schools can be considered average in terms of special needs issues and familial background or educational opportunities of students and the two private school were considered to be above the average. The other school, on the outskirts of the city, was crowded and below the average. Then we randomly selected three classes from each school (one each from the 6th, 7th and 8th grades). Of the total 428 students from the 15 classes which constituted the final sample, 14 questionnaires were rejected as being quite incomplete or obviously incorrect and the refusal rate was 3%. As a result, the final sample consisted of 414 adolescents (214 girls and 200 boys) from the 6th, 7th and 8th grades with an age range of 10 to 14 years. Adolescents were mainly (94.5 %) from intact families. Mean ages were 12.55 (SD = .91) for girls and 12.60 (SD = .88) for boys.

While 28% of the sample represented upper SES, 44.7% were middle SES and 27.3% lower SES. Adolescents reported their mothers’ and fathers’ education level using six response categories ranging from illiterate to master’s or professional degree and indicated their parents’ employment satus (full-time, retired, unemployed). The percentages of mothers’ and fathers’ education level in the three SES groups are given in Table 1. The mothers’ education level, χ²(10) = 325.71, p < .001 and fathers’ education level, χ²(10) = 365.60, p < .001 differed significantly in these three SES groups. In terms of mother’s occupation, the percentage of housewives was 98%, 48% and 33% in low, middle and high SES, respectively. Professional occupations such as doctor, engineer, architect, lawyer, and lecturer are relatively more represented in high SES, whereas occupations such as government employee, technician, nurse, teacher, and secretary are represented more in middle SES. 60% of the fathers are laborers and 15% are unemployed or day laborers in low SES; the distribution of the fathers’ occupations in middle and high SES is similar to the mothers’ occupations.

Table 1.

Mothers’ and Fathers’^a Educational Level (%).

Socioeconomic status	Nonliterate	Primary school	Secondary school	High school	University	Graduate degree
Low	24.1 2.7	66.1 71.7	8.9 19.5	0.9 6.2	0 0	0 0
Middle	1.1 0	11.4 2.7	13.5 8.1	28.6 28.1	40 51.4	5.4 9.7
High	0 0	1.7 1.7	0.9 1.7	15.5 3.4	61.2 58.6	20.7 34.5

Percentages of fathers’ educational level depicted in italics.

Measures

Adolescents completed a self-report questionnaire designed to assess (a) psychological well-being (life satisfaction and global self-worth), (b) parent-adolescent relationships in terms of both communication and intensity of conflict over daily issues, and (c) perception of their family’s economic circumstances.

Satisfaction with Life Scale

The adolescents’ general life satisfaction was assessed using a 5 item scale (e.g. “The conditions of my life are excellent”), adapted from Diener, Emmons, Larsen, & Griffin (1985). The scale values range from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly disagree). The internal consistency of the scale was .81 for girls and .76 for boys in this study.

Self-Perception Profile for Adolescents

The SPPA is a 45-item instrument that assesses the adolescent’s perception of his or her own competence in several areas (Harter, 1988). It yields subscale scores in eight domains, as well as a global self-worth score that is independent of any particular skill domain (e.g. for global self-worth “Some teenagers are happy with themselves most of the time BUT other teenagers are often not happy with themselves”). The SPPA was translated into Turkish by Şahin and Güvenç (1996) and tested psychometrically. The test-retest reliability of the SPPA over a 3 week period was found to be .87. The internal consistency reliability of the SPPA was .88, both during the adaptation study by Şahin and Güvenç (1996) and later by Yılmaz (2001). The subscale of global self-worth was used in this study and its Cronbach alphas were found to be .77 for girls and .71 for boys.

Parent-Adolescent Relationship Questionnaire

The PARQ, developed by Robin, Koepke and Moye (1990), contains 16 subscales. There are 284 items for adolescents and 250 items for parents, all in the form of true or false questions. We used communication with mother (e.g., “My mother always talks while we try to discuss something”) and communication with father (e.g., “My father always talks while we try to discuss something”) subscales of the Adolescent Form. The communication scale was completed separately for mothers and fathers. It measures the manner of communication between parents and adolescents, their perception of accusations, defensive comments; generally, their positive and negative communication skills. There are 13 items in subscales to assess communication with the mother and 13 items in subscales to assess communication with the father. The higher the score, the better the communication is considered to be. This questionnaire was translated into Turkish by Eryüksel (1996) and tested psychometrically. The internal consistency reliability of the PARQ subscales in the present study was .86 and .88 for girls and .80 and .84 for boys, respectively for communication with mother and communication with father.

Conflict Issues Checklist

Parent-adolescent conflict was assessed using a 17-item checklist that measured intensity of parent-adolescent conflict over daily issues such as homework and school success, relationships with friends and household chores. It was designed by the authors, based on the results of a study conducted on Turkish early adolescents (Sayıl et al., 2002). The adolescents were asked to rate how often, in the past month, they had arguments, disagreements or problems with their mothers or fathers on each of 17 issues using a 5 point Likert-type scale (e.g., “I argue with my mum/dad about my homework and school performance”). Items were summed to create a total score; higher scores reflected higher conflict. The internal consistency of the checklist for girls was .87 for mothers and .87 for fathers, while for boys it was .80 for mothers and .85 for fathers.

The Perceived Economic Strain Scale

The PESS, adapted from Connor-Smith, Compas, Wadsworth, Thomsen and Saltzman (2000) assesses how often adolescents experienced economic strain in their life. They were asked to complete the scale by taking into consideration their family’s economic circumstances over the last 6 months. There were 8 items (e.g., “We didn’t have enough money to pay bills”), scored on a 4 point scale ranging from 0 (not at all) to 3 (almost everyday). Items were summed to create a total score; higher scores reflected more stress about the economic circumstances of their family. The internal consistency of the scale was .95 for girls and .76 for boys.

Procedure

The institutional ethics committee approved the study and permission was obtained from the Ministry of National Education, a formal procedure necessary to gather data from the schools. Parental consent was also obtained from the parents. Adolescents participated in the questionnaire sessions on a voluntary basis, in their classrooms during a regular school day. Completion of the questionnaires required approximately 50 minutes.

Results

Descriptive Statistics

Our findings indicated significant and positive correlation between mothers’ education level and parental communication (mother, p < .01; father, p < .01), life satisfaction (p < .01), global self-worth (p < .01), but a significant and negative correlation with parental conflict (mother, p < .01; father, p < .05), and perceived economic strain (p < .01). Furthermore, the adolescent’s age significantly and negatively correlated with parental communication (mother, p < .01; father, p < .01) and life satisfaction (p < .01). In order to determine the validity of measures of economic hardship and SES in our sample, an analysis of variance was conducted for the amount of economic strain reported by adolescents. Results indicated that there were significant differences among adolescents from the three SES groups, F(2, 406) = 88.54, p < .001. Adolescents from low SES ( $\bar{X}$ = 6.90) reported more economic strain than adolescents from middle SES ( $\bar{X}$ = 1.58) and high SES ( $\bar{X}$ = 1.09).

We grouped our analyses under two main headings within the framework of the aims and hypotheses of the study.

Results for Dyadic Relations as a Function of Gender, Grade and Socioeconomic Status

In order to determine the differences between adolescent reported parental communication and conflict, two separate analyses of variance with 3 (SES) x 3 (grade) x 2 (gender) repeated measures were conducted for communication (mother and father) and conflict (mother and father) as the within subject factors. The SES, grade and gender of the adolescents are the between subject factors. For parental communication, the analysis revealed only significant main effect of communication, F_{(1, 360)} = 4.01, p < .05, η = .01, adolescents reported more negative communication with their mothers ( ${\bar{X}}_{mother}$ =10.30) than with their fathers ( ${\bar{X}}_{father}$ = 10.65). For parental conflict, there were significant main effects of conflict, F_{(1, 380)} = 140.84, p < .001, η = .27 and interaction between conflict and gender, F_{(1, 380)} = 10.19, p < .01, η = .03. As shown in Figure 2, both boys and girls reported more conflict with their mothers than with their fathers. Furthermore, boys reported more conflict with their mothers and fathers than the girls did. Other interactions in the model were not significant.

Figure 2.

Parental conflict of boys and girls.

Regarding the between group comparison, further ANOVA results indicated that there were significant main effects of SES, F_{(2, 380)} = 4.11, p < .05, η = .02 and gender, F_(1,380) = 7.94; p < .01, η = .02, but interactions in the model were not significant. Post hoc analyses showed that adolescents from low SES ( $\bar{X}$ = 34.13) reported more parental conflict than adolescents from middle SES ( $\bar{X}$ = 32.67) and high SES ( $\bar{X}$ = 30.20). In addition, boys ( $\bar{X}$ = 33.83) reported more parental conflict than girls ( $\bar{X}$ = 30.84).

Results for Hypothesized Relations Between Perceived Economic Strain, Parent-Adolescent Relationships and Adolescent Psychological Well-Being

Path analyses examining the proposed relations in the model were conducted using the maximum likelihood estimation method with Analysis of Moment Structures Software (AMOS 17.0) in SPSS. We carried out these analyses following Holmbeck’s (1997) procedure for testing the mediational effects in structural equation models. In addition, we used the Bootstrap approach (Little, Card, Bovaird, Preacher & Crandall, 2007; Preacher & Hayes, 2004) to test the mediation effects and applied listwise deletion to deal with missing data. We conducted Little’s MCAR test and found that the data were missing at random, χ²(112) = 144.212, p > .05.

To examine these relationships and influences, we first computed zero-order correlations to establish what relationships exist among the study variables (see Table 2). Perceived economic strain was significantly associated with all measures of parent-adolescent relationships (communication with mother, communication with father, conflict with mother, conflict with father), and life satisfaction and global self-worth. All measures of parent-adolescent relationships were significantly associated with life satisfaction and global self-worth. We also conducted ANOVA to determine the differences between boys and girls in terms of all the measures in the model (perceived economic strain, communication with mother, communication with father, conflict with mother, conflict with father, life satisfaction and global self-worth) and the results indicated that there were only significant differences between boys and girls with regards to conflict with father F_{(1, 276)} = 8.50, p < .01. Boys reported more conflict with their fathers than girls. Considering this finding and results of dyadic relations, we compared variance-covariance matrices across gender using Box’s M test. It was found that boys and girls had similar variance-covariance matrices (p > .05). So we did not test the model separately for boys and girls.

Table 2

Correlations Between Perceived Economic Strain, Parent-Adolescent Relationships (Communication With Mother, Communication With Father, Conflict With Mother, Conflict With Father) and Psychological Well-Being (Global Self-Worth and Life Satisfaction; N = 276).

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
1. Perceived economic strain	—
2. Communication with mother	−.19**	—
3. Communication with father	−.19**	.46**	—
4. Conflict with mother	.21**	−.22**	−.19**	—
5. Conflict with father	.20**	−.14*	−.26**	.78**	—
6. Global self-worth	−.27**	.36**	.26**	−.33**	−.26**	—
7. Life satisfaction	−.38**	.43**	.38**	−.31**	−.24**	.50**	—
Mean	2.35	10.61	10.91	29.31	34.63	15.68	18.92
Std. Deviation	3.95	2.81	2.87	11.04	11.24	3.42	3.81

p < .05. **p < 01.

To determine the mediational effect, in the first step we calculated the direct effects model of Figure 3. Because of high levels of intercorrelations among life satisfaction and global self-worth, the error terms for these variables were allowed to correlate with one another in the model. This model accounted for 14% of the variance in life satisfaction and 7% of the variance in global self-worth. Significant negative direct associations were found between perceived economic strain and life satisfaction (β = –.38, p < .001), global self-worth (β = –.27, p < .001).

Figure 3.

Model of direct effects between predictor variable and outcome variables.

In the second step, we calculated the indirect effects model of Figure 4. Because of the high levels of intercorrelations among communication with mother and father and conflict with mother and father, the error terms for these variables were allowed to correlate with one another in the model. This model showed a reasonably good fit with the data: χ²(6, N = 276) = 52.45, p < .001, RMSEA = .17, GFI = .95, AGFI = .77, CFI = .92. The model accounted for 24% of the variance in life satisfaction and 18% of the variance in global self-worth. The model showed that perceived economic strain was negatively associated with communication with mother (β = –.19, p < .001), which was in turn related to life satisfaction (β = .29, p < .001) and global self worth (β = .27, p < .001). We also found that perceived economic strain was associated with conflict with mother (β = .21, p < .001), which was in turn negatively related to life satisfaction (β = –.25, p < .01) and global self worth (β = –.26, p < .01). In the case of the father, the model showed that perceived economic strain was negatively associated with communication with father (β = –.19, p < .001), which was in turn only related to life satisfaction (β = .21, p < .001). Perceived economic strain was found to be associated with conflict with father (β = .20, p < .001), but not related to life satisfaction and global self-worth. The model suggested different paths for maternal and paternal measures (communication and conflict) regarding the life satisfaction and global self-worth although in both cases perceived economic strain was associated with both maternal and paternal measures.

Figure 4.

Model of indirect effects.

In the third step, we calculated the model of mediational effects shown in Figure 5 with direct path between perceived economic strain and life satisfaction and global self-worth. This model accounted for more variance in life satisfaction (31%) and global self-worth (24%) and showed a better fit with the data compared with the constrained model: χ²(4, N = 276) = 26.62, p< .001, RMSEA = .14, GFI = .97, AGFI = .82, CFI = .96. This model provided a significantly better fit, as can be seen in the significant chi-square change, Δχ²(2) = 25.83 p < .001. When comparing the first direct effects model in step 1 and the final mediational model, some differences in the significant paths and their β coefficients were found. In Figure 3, we found a significant strong negative direct association between perceived economic strain and life satisfaction (β = –.38, p < .001) and global self worth (β = –.27, p < .001): this association was also significant but considerably lower in the model shown in Figure 5 for life satisfaction (β = –.26, p < .001) and global self worth (β = –.16, p < .01), suggesting that the relationship between perceived economic strain and life satisfaction and global self worth may be mediated at least in part by level of communication with mother, conflict with mother and communication with father (perceived economic strain and communication with mother β = –.19, p < .001: communication with mother and life satisfaction β = .26, p < .001: communication with mother and global self-worth β = .25, p < .001: perceived economic strain and conflict with mother β = .21, p < .001: conflict with mother and life satisfaction β = –.22, p < .01: conflict with mother and global self-worth β = –.24, p < .01: perceived economic strain and communication with father β = –.19, p < .001: communication with father and life satisfaction β = .19, p < .001). We also used the bootstrap approach for determining the significance of the indirect effects which are significant from economic strain to life satisfaction (p < .01), and from economic strain to global self-worth (p < .01).

Figure 5.

Model of mediating effects.

Discussion

The findings of the present study revealed that parent-adolescent relationships vary as a function of both parents’ and adolescents’ gender and socioeconomic status in the early years of adolescence. In terms of overall parental relations, having a lower socioeconomic status was related to more parental conflict, resulting in more confrontations over daily life issues. It is well established that financial difficulties affect the family structure in Turkey (Kağıtçıbaşı & Ataca, 2005), and our findings related to SES could be interpreted in terms of the impact of economic strain on family and parent-child relationships. Numerous studies have shown that socioeconomic disadvantage is strongly and consistently related to greater parent-adolescent conflict, more negative emotions, as well as harsher and more punitive (or unresponsive) parenting (Conger et. al., 1992; 1993; 2002; Grant et al., 2003). In our sample, the percentage of illiterate parents and unemployed or day labourer fathers is worth noting, particularly in the low socioeconomic status families. In general, these families migrated from the rural parts of the country and live on the outskirts of a large city. Thus, the economic hardship experienced by these adolescents is not temporary. Consistently they differed significantly from adolescents in middle and high SES in terms of perceived economic strain. It is well known that during adolescence one of the most important differences in family life is the increase in expenditures. During this period, adolescents have changing needs and wants and become increasingly demanding since they have more outside activities with their peers (e.g., Larson, Richards, Moneta, Holmbeck & Duckett, 1996). While this may not present any problems for adolescents in the middle and upper SES, it leads to conflict between parents and adolescents in families with limited finances. Therefore, it can be concluded that the effect of economic disadvantage on parental relations was highest in adolescents from low SES.

In terms of dyadic relations, our results indicate that it is the fathers, rather than the mothers, that have the more positive communication with adolescents. This is notably different from the tendency seen in the literature, based on the results obtained from studies done in various cultures (e.g., Buhrmester & Furman, 1987; Laursen, Coy & Collins, 1998; Shek, 2000) as well as earlier studies done in Turkey (Çuhadaroğlu et al., 2004; Güre et al., 2006; Hortaçsu, 1989; Köker et al., 1994). Our findings indicate that both boys and girls have more conflicts with their mothers than with their fathers. Moreover, boys tend to have more conflicts with both their parents than girls do. These findings are somewhat incompatible with some other findings which indicated more parental conflict with daughters than sons, particularly between daughters and their mothers (Montemayor,1982; 1986; Smetana, 1989; Smetana, Campione-Barr & Metzger, 2006; Steinberg & Morris, 2001). Our finding is also different from that of another recent study (Allison & Schultz, 2004), conducted on 11- to 14-year-old adolescents, indicating no differences between boys and girls in the total frequency of conflicts with parents, but a clear and consistent pattern of gender-typing in both the frequency and intensity of conflict between parents and daughters. There were more frequent parent-daughter conflicts over household chores, personal appearance, irritating and disruptive behavior and personal autonomy, whereas the single issue which generated the most conflict between parents and sons compared with daughters was doing homework and getting good grades in school. Although similar gender differences reflecting traditional gender role stereotypes were observed in a study in Turkey conducted on early adolescents (Sayıl et al., 2002), we could not see any variation in domains of conflict as a function of gender. Some researchers (e.g., Montemayor, 1982; 1986) claim that the reason why adolescents have fewer confrontations with their fathers is that they have less contact with their fathers and, compared to mothers, fathers tend to be less forceful and restrictive. Our findings may be interpreted to a certain extent in terms of this explanation. In addition, when we consider family dynamics and atmosphere in Turkey, since the mothers tend to play a greater role in solving daily issues and since the conflicts generally revolve around such issues, it is only natural that there will be more arguments with the mother. Moreover, since there is greater intimacy with the mother, there is greater likelihood of confrontation as the adolescent attempts to gain autonomy. In addition, the tendency for boys to have more conflict with both parents may be explained in terms of a different socialization process in Turkey: parents often have different expectations consistent with traditional gender role stereotypes for their daughters and sons. In line with these expectations, results based on early adolescent females indicated that when the psychological autonomy dimension of parenting style increases, adolescents’ behavioral autonomy decreases. It can be inferred that girls may tend to give more importance to their parents’ values and views compared to themselves in terms of making decisions about themselves or determining the right behavioral patterns to achieve their goals (Musaağaoğlu & Güre, 2005).

Our findings have shown that the quality of adolescents’ relationships with parents partially mediate the association between perceived economic strain and psychological well-being and also add support to cross-cultural similarities in the patterns of associations among family variables and adolescent outcomes (Conger et al., 2002; Dmitrieva et al., 2004; Forkel & Silbereisen, 2001; Wadsworth & Compas, 2002; Wissink, Dekovic & Meijer, 2006). Although the cross-sectional nature of the data prevents us from making definitive statements regarding the directionality or causality of the proposed relationships in our study, the overall mediated model was not rejected under any circumstances. Consistent with our predictions, there is a partial mediational effect of maternal outcome in terms of both communication and conflict in life satisfaction and global self-worth, whereas only communication with father acts as a mediator in life satisfaction. It seems that the perceived quality of the relationships with mothers rather than with fathers has an important influence on the association between economic strain and psychological well-being. The findings of some earlier cross-sectional studies in Turkey revealed that adolescents perceive their mothers as the person with whom they can share most of their problems (Çuhadaroğlu et al., 2004; Hortaçsu, 1989; Köker et al., 1994). While the mother in a Turkish family is the main caregiver and tends to be more supportive, protective and supervisory, the father is a more distant symbol of authority (Sunar, 2002). Thus, the mother often acts as a buffer between the father and the children (Kağıtçıbaşı, 2007). Taken together, we may propose that maintaining warm and close relations with mothers, which in turn provide emotional support, may diminish the negative effect of financial difficulties perceived by adolescents, while having a protective role in the psychological well-being of Turkish adolescents.

Consistent with some previous studies, our findings indicated that adolescent reported economic stress was also related to their psychological well-being (e.g., Dmitrieva et. al., 2004; Wadsworth & Compas, 2002). In line with our predictions, adolescents who perceive more financial strain in their family life are more likely to have negative evaluations about themselves and more negative global judgements regarding their lives. When the direct effect of economic strain was included in the model, we were able to explain more variance in both the life satisfaction and the self-esteem of adolescents. This finding may also be interpreted in terms of the socioeconomic status of adolescents. As pointed out in the method section, the mother’s education level is one of the indicators of SES in the present study and our finding also reveals a significant correlation (p < .01) between mother’s education level and self-worth (r = .36) and life satisfaction (r = .45). Considerable research investigating the role of the mother’s education level on different psychological outcomes, such as self concept, self-worth, social competence and academic competence in Turkish children and adolescents, has consistently indicated significant and positive correlations in more homogeneous samples (e.g., Güre et al., 2006; Hortaçsu, 1994; Kağıtçıbaşı, 2007; Torucu, 1990; Yılmaz, 2001).

Moreover, we found that perceived economic strain was negatively related to parental communication, while positively correlated to parental conflict. However, the resulting relationship did not indicate any differentiation between mothers and fathers. This lack of a difference between maternal and paternal measures in terms of adolescent reported economic stress was somewhat incompatible with findings in Chinese culture, which is similar to ours in certain aspects. Shek (2005) found that economic disadvantage negatively affects father-child relational qualities more than mother-child relational qualities in secondary school students. He explained these findings in terms of the Chinese cultural expectation that fathers are regarded as the breadwinners of families, whereas mothers are regarded as the caretaker of home and family members. For this reason, adolescents are more likely to blame the father for the family’s financial circumstances. It has been proposed that even in more collectivist and traditional societies, like those in Asia, expression of individual needs and aims may change due to globalization. In a country such as ours, which is collectivist and devoloping, changes towards individualism may also affect intrafamily relationships, roles and expectations. Despite these changes, most married couple households in Turkey have single earners, the vast majority of which are men in contrast to their Western counterparts. In Turkey, although women entered the labor force as salaried workers in 1897 and won their social rights earlier than many Western countries, the number of women (27.6 %) in the labor force is still rather limited (TUİK, 2011). However, relatively little is known about how adolescents’ perceptions of their parents roles as breadwinner or homemaker have changed as a result of the economic growth and urbanization occurring in Turkey during recent decades.

Our findings suggest different paths for maternal and paternal measures in terms of communication and conflict regarding the life satisfaction and self-esteem of adolescents. Adolescents who report more positive communication and less conflict with their mothers, perceive themselves and their life conditions more positively. However, only positive communication with the father seems to be related to life satisfaction. Similar to our findings, Turkish adolescents’ perceptions of family interactions as happy, close and harmonious and mothers as supportive, loving and involved are positively correlated with adolescents’ actual academic performance, academic competence and self-esteem/self-concept (Aycan, 1992). Additionally, Turkish adolescents who reported more conflicts with their parents were found to have significantly more psychological symptoms and lower self-esteem compared to their peers (Çuhadaroğlu et al., 2004). Research has demonstrated that indicators of a positive parent-adolescent relationship quality are often positively correlated with adolescent self-esteem, especially when adolescents from different cultural backgrounds are investigated (Barber, Ball & Armistead, 2003; Güre, Wissink & Dekovic, 2010; Shek, 1998). For example, Wissink et al (2006) found similar associations between the quality of the parent-adolescent relationship and aggressive behavior, delinquent behavior and global self-worth in Dutch, Moroccan, Turkish and Surinamese adolescents living in The Netherlands. In all groups, a more negative quality of relationship was related to a higher level of aggressive and delinquent behavior and lower self-esteem. Findings of studies examining adolescents from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds indicated a positive relationship with parents to be the strongest contributor to life satisfaction, accounting for more of the variance than self-concept, relationships at school, friends, religion or money (Edwards & Lopez, 2006; Leung & Leung, 1992; Phinney & Ong, 2002).

The strengths of this study lie in the fact that data was obtained from a relatively understudied population (in Turkey) and a collectivist approach was used to present a range of measures of adolescent adjustment. However, it is important to note that some limitations of this study do exist. The first drawback is the cross-sectional nature of the data investigating the short-term impact of adolescents’ own perceptions in their adaptation to the family’s economic circumstances. Longitudinal research would be needed in order to establish the causal relationships and long lasting effects of economic stress from the adolescent perspective. Another limitation stems from our reliance on adolescents’ reports with respect to both predictor and outcome variables. This may not be considered an issue when the emphasis is on the adolescent’s own perceptions and feelings, but measures beyond self-report, such as parent ratings, would increase in validity as regards, for example, relationships with parents or parent reported financial difficulties. Therefore, the results of this study would be strengthened if future research using multiple sources of measurement yielded similar results.

Despite these limitations, this study can enrich the related literature since it examines the unique contributions of maternal and paternal measures from the adolescent perspective and provides valuable information about the protective role of positive parental relationships in the association between family factors and adolescent outcomes. Findings also yielded a negative impact of economic disadvantage on both maternal and paternal outcomes in terms of socioeconomic status as an objective measurement and adolescents’ perceptions about their families’ economic circumstances as a subjective measurement during early adolescence. It seems that, whatever their living conditions, how adolescents interpret these conditions and what they feel about themselves is somewhat related to the quality of their relationships with their parents, particularly with their mothers. All these taken together indicate that future research is necessary to explore the associations among family related negative life events, different aspects of parental relations and adolescent outcomes over time across more diverse and representative samples.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Biographies

Zehra Uçanok is associate professor of psychology at Hacettepe University in Ankara, Turkey. Research interests include adult development and aging (transition to motherhood, middle age and menopause, developmental regulation model and successful aging), bullying and cyberbullying in adolescence, psychosocial and pubertal development in adolescence. E-mail: ucanok@hacettepe.edu.tr

Ayşen Güre is professor of psychology at Ankara University in Ankara, Turkey. Research interests include parent adolescent-relationships (parenting styles and practices), marital conflict and divorce, psychosocial and pubertal development in adolescence. E-mail: gure@humanity.ankara.edu.tr

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. (2001). Eşler arasındaki uyum, anne-baba tutumu ve benlik algısı arasındaki ilişkilerin gelişimsel olarak incelenmesi. [The relationship between marital adjustment, parenting style and self-perception of children from different age groups]. Türk Psikoloji Dergisi, 47, 1-20.