Father's unemployment and adolescent's self-concept

This study examined families in which fathers were affected by a steel mill shutdown, and tested hypotheses on the impact of unemployment on parent-child relations and adolescent self-concept. The hypotheses were tested by comparing convenience samples of three types of intact families with children between the ages of 12 and 18: continuously employed, unemployed with slight income loss, unemployed with significant income loss. As predicted, relationship with fathers were more negative when income loss was significant, but contrary to predictions, the relationship with mothers were not more positive, and adolescent self-concept was not directly affected by unemployment or income loss. However, a path analysis showed that income loss affected adolescent self-concept indirectly through its impact on parent-child relations.