Poverty, Neglect, and Socioemotional Outcomes: An Examination of Child Care as a Promotive and Protective Factor

According to the family stress model (FSM), poverty increases parent's psychological distress and maladaptive parenting behaviors, which contribute to children's behavioral difficulties. Poverty is one of the strongest predictors of neglect, but there is less evidence of neglect as a mediator in the FSM. Most families in poverty do not engage in neglect and some children exposed to poverty demonstrate adaptive socioemotional outcomes. One way to enable child and family well-being could be access to child care, but there remain questions regarding its benefits. This study examined associations between poverty and children's socioemotional development via parental psychological distress and neglect and the promotive and protective effects of child care. Lower income-to-needs at birth was associated with more depressive symptoms at year 1. Depressive symptoms and parenting stress at year 1 were related to more neglect at year 3, which was differentially related to socioemotional outcomes at year 5. We found promotive effects of child care at year 1 with lower levels of neglect and protective effects of child care at year 3 for socioemotional development. Our findings suggest the importance of neglect prevention and increasing child care access (e.g., universal preK or means-tested programs) for supporting families impacted by poverty.