The purpose of this study is to examine how the family's economic difficulties have changed thild subjective well-being in the difficult situation of COVID-19. Corona 19 has had a great impact on children's emotions by causing cracks in the daily life...
The purpose of this study is to examine how the family's economic difficulties have changed thild subjective well-being in the difficult situation of COVID-19. Corona 19 has had a great impact on children's emotions by causing cracks in the daily life surrounding children along with socioeconomic problems at home(Jung et al., 2022). Regarding changes in child subjective well-being around the world during the COVID-19 period, the Gallup World Poll, UNICEF, and the UN Child Rights Commission also emphasized the need for accurate and in-depth measurement and alternatives for child subjective well-being.
As COVID-19 is prolonged, it was found that children experience the highest stress in terms of not being able to meet their peers. Stress, such as restrictions on going out due to fear of infection, increases children's depression and aggression, resulting in psychological and emotional difficulties(Choi & Kim, 2021).
In addition, the family's socioeconomic crisis caused by COVID-19 directly and indirectly hit children (Blackwell, 2022). The COVID-19 situation maximized the instability of the labor market, causing a deepening of income inequality and polarization of economic risks (Hyo-Sang Ahn and Jeong-Hee Seo, 2020), and as a result, the vulnerable group became more economically difficult and needed intensive support (Kim & Lee, 2020). Following government measures such as prohibition of private gatherings exceeding the standard number of people and restrictions on use of facilities to prevent infection and quarantine of COVID-19, the number of self-employed and service workers who have to close their businesses or take temporary leave has increased rapidly, resulting in serious financial difficulties for their families. It has come to an end (Son & Moon, 2021; In, 2020). In addition, childcare gaps due to school closures conflicts between children and parents due to social distancing and self-isolation, and conflicts between couples due to economic difficulties negatively affected family relationships, which increased parental stress. (Jin et al., 2020; Choi, 2020; Jung, 2021).
In the meantime, many preceding studies have emphasized that children's problems should be comprehensively examined in terms of economic, educational, and emotional problems in the environment surrounding children (Moon, 2000; Yoo, 2016; Lee & Park, 2011), there has been no study that has looked at this in an integrated way since COVID-19. Mainly, many studies have looked at life satisfaction from a cognitive aspect, excluding emotional factors (Choi et al., 2021; Mohring et al., 2021), and only focused on economic difficulties according to poverty or income level (Noh, 2022; Jung et al., 2020). In particular, considering that child subjective well-being consists of positive and negative emotions along with life satisfaction (Diener et al., 1985; Diener et al., 1999; Garcia, 2011), an in-depth study It was judged that a study with an integrated and integrated analysis was necessary.
Therefore, the problem of this study is as follows. First, 'During COVID-19, does the negative family economic situation negatively affect child subjective well-being?', Second, 'During COVID-19, family economic pressures have a negative impact on child subjective well-being. Third, 'During COVID-19, do changes in family relationships mediate the impact of family economic pressures on child subjective well-being?‘
In order to find out whether parenting stress and changes in family relationships mediate the impact of family economic pressure during the COVID-19 period on child subjective well-being according to the research question, 'Family Stress Model(Conger & Donnellan (2007)’ was used. By using this model, the degree to which economic circumstances affect children's emotional, behavioral, cognitive, and physical well-being through economic pressure, family interaction, family relationships, marital conflict, parenting stress, and parenting behavior practice can be checked. In this study, we tried to determine how the family's economic situation during the COVID-19 period affected child subjective well-being through the mediating effects of economic pressure, parenting stress, and changes in family relationships.
The subjects of the study were 10-year-old children and their parents, and a total of 1,351 cases were conducted. The research data used the secondary data of "Study on the COVID-19 Pandemic and child subjective well-being" by Save the Children and Seoul National University's Social Welfare Research Institute, which were surveyed from July 22, 2021 to August 20, 2021. , of which the children's data is related to ISCWeb's COVID-19 supplement, which studied children in about 20 countries.
In order to find out the family's economic situation during the COVID-19 period, the average monthly income, whether or not the average monthly income of households decreased or increased after COVID-19, and whether or not parents' working hours decreased or increased were input as independent variables. And, in order to find out the economic pressure that the family actually felt and experienced during the COVID-19 period, the degree of material deprivation and how much parents were concerned about the family's economic situation were set as measurement variables, and then 'economic pressure' was used as a latent variable. The latent variables of child subjective well-being were measured through overall life satisfaction (OLS) and affect balance values, and then used as dependent variables. Parenting stress and family relationships were set as parameters. For parenting stress, the value measured by 11 questions of parenting stress was turned into a latent variable and inputted. Mediating effects of ;relationship between family members’ were confirmed with latent variables measured through the degree of family relationship that children think, the degree of relationship that parents think with their children, and the degree of marital relationship that parents think.
In order to verify the research hypothesis, multiple mediating effect model analysis of the structural equation (SEM) was used. First, SPSS 25.0 was used to verify normality and correlation analysis of major variables, and then AMOS 21.0 was used to conduct confirmatory factor analysis and structural model path analysis. In order to confirm the multiple mediating effect, bootstrapping analysis was conducted using phantom variables.
The analysis results of this study are as follows. First, during the COVID-19 period, the family's economic situation did not show a significant direct negative effect on child subjective well-being. However, it was found that the economic situation of the COVID-19 family had a significant mediating effect through economic pressure, parenting stress, and the degree of change in family relationships. In other words, if the average monthly income during the COVID-19 period and the average monthly income decreased or the working hours of parents decreased after COVID-19, this increased the economic pressure of the family during the COVID-19 period. Increased economic pressure did not have a direct negative effect on child subjective well-being, but it was found to have a negative effect through the mediating effect of parenting stress and the degree of change in family relationships.
The theoretical implications of these findings are as follows. First, in order to in-depth analyze the relationship between economic pressure and child subjective well-being in the COVID-19 situation, this study is based on 'Family Stress Model (Conger & Donnellan, 2007) and parenting stress and family relationships. And it was revealed that this model, which had been conducted only for children from low-income families, was sufficiently applicable even in disasters and crises such as a pandemic. Second, a structured scale was used to measure the main variables, and the mediating effects and path coefficients between the variables were accurately identified using bootstrapping analysis of structural equations.
Next, the practical and policy implications of this study are as follows. First, it will be necessary to establish long-term policies and interventions such as emergency disaster support in the country so that economic changes during the COVID-19 do not lead to increased economic pressure. In addition, to ensure that family economic changes do not negatively affect child subjective well-being even after COVID-19, expansion of direct support measures such as subsidies for small business closure and individual rehabilitation and bankruptcy support policies, subsidies for reducing working hours, and work-life balance job incentives will be needed. In particular, more systematic and long-term support is needed beyond one-time support for economically vulnerable groups who are bound to suffer a lot in disaster situations. The current basic livelihood security system's emergency welfare support policy should be expanded in the target and scope of support so that benefits can be received even in disaster situations such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Second, direct support such as disaster subsidy is neended so that parents can alleviate concerns and anxiety about the family's economic situation, and at the same time, the child's family does not suffer from material deficiency and the family's economic pressure is reduced. A priority should be given to support methods that can reduce concerns about the material deprivation and economic situation of children's families. Third, in order to improve the child subjective well-being, measures to buffer parenting stress and deepening deterioration of family relationships in disaster situations such as COVID-19 are needed (Lee, 2017; Kim & Song, 2020), It is necessary to pay attention to local children's centers and after-school care services, which are at the forefront of emergency care, and to improve the fundamental problems of the child care system. Fourth, the economic pressure of COVID-19 had a negative impact on child subjective well-being due to increased parenting stress and deterioration in family relationships. Therefore, counseling programs and support for relieving parents' parenting stress and improving family relationships are needed.
Despite these implications, this study has the following limitations. First, since this study is a cross-sectional rather than a longitudinal study, it is necessary to conduct an in-depth analysis and identify the trajectory of child subjective well-being through comparative studies before COVID-19, during and after COVID-19. Second, this study analyzed the effect of income change on child subjective well-being while controlling for income level. Therefore, additional follow-up studies are needed to determine whether these changes are temporary changes due to the collapse of family equilibrium or long-term changes due to reduced income or reduced working hours. Third, there is a limitation that, in order to see the difference according to the change in the marital relationship, the family composition was not considered by selecting children with adoptive parents and not considering various family compositions such as single-parent families and grandparents' families. According to research, during the COVID-19 period, single-parent families experienced a lot of problems with carelessness. Therefore, in follow-up studies, family composition should be varied and applied.