Abstract
Housing cost burden is stressful for families, interfering with healthy, positive parenting. The present study uses data from the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study to examine the relationship between housing cost burden and aggressive parenting with children age 3 to age 15. Latent growth curve modeling finds that both types of aggressive parenting behaviors decline on average, but that housing cost burden contributes to significant ongoing risk. Results indicate within-time associations between housing cost burden and psychological aggression and associations both within- and across-time between housing cost burden and physical aggression. Housing cost burden poses a significant risk factor for families, and child maltreatment prevention approaches must incorporate strategies for addressing housing cost burden.
More than half a million children are victims of abuse and neglect in the United States each year (Administration for Children and Families, 2024). Physically and psychologically aggressive parenting present significant threats to children’s development across multiple domains including physical and mental health (Cicchetti et al., 2016; Lanier et al., 2010), cognitive functioning (Hong et al., 2018), and substance use (Cicchetti & Handley, 2019; Halpern et al., 2018), among others. Financial hardship contributes additional risk for adverse parenting across all stages of childhood (Conrad-Hiebner & Byram, 2020). Housing costs typically comprise the largest household expense, and particularly so for low-income households (Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University, 2023). As such, lack of affordable housing contributes significant financial strain to families already facing increased risk for aggressive parenting. As the affordable housing supply has continued to shrink in recent decades (Aurand et al., 2023), children in under-resourced families may experience continued risk for adverse parenting (Marçal, 2018, 2022; Warren & Font, 2015). A developmental psychopathology perspective suggests that child and family well-being are functions of the evolving ecological environment across time and developmental phases. Few studies investigate the evolving relationship between housing cost burden and aggressive parenting as children progress from early childhood to adolescence and further, limited empirical evidence (e.g. Fowler et al., 2020, 2022) informs affordable housing as a means of developmentally informed maltreatment prevention.
Risk for Parenting Aggression Across Child Development
Child needs and behaviors evolve dramatically across development, driving similarly evolving parenting strategies and challenges. Prior research suggests that risk for aggression in parenting – a strong indicator of maltreatment risk (Rodriguez, 2010) – likewise evolves as children age (Villodas et al., 2012), with cascading implications for subsequent child outcomes (Kobulsky et al., 2024). The highest prevalence of aggressive parenting is observed among younger children (Administration for Children and Families, 2024), with rates observed to hold steady or decline on average as children age. This trend is perhaps explained in part because the daily and financial stressors of infancy and toddler parenting ease as children’s independence, time away from the home, and ability to physically defend themselves increase with age (Administration for Children and Families, 2024; Austin et al., 2020). At the same time, older children and adolescents may find themselves in conflict with parents more frequently due to developmentally normative risk-taking and individuation from the family of origin (Ciranka & van den Bos, 2021). Variation in trajectories of aggression in parenting across at-risk children has been further explained by early exposure (Mersky et al., 2009; Proctor et al., 2012), caregiver mental health and substance use (Jonson-Reid et al., 2010; Proctor et al., 2012), maternal stress (Prendergast & MacPhee, 2020), and domestic violence (Casanueva et al., 2015). Economic hardship has been consistently and progressively associated with maltreatment risk (Conrad-Hiebner & Byram, 2020; Kim & Drake, 2018; Lefebvre et al., 2017), but its role in shaping trajectories remains murky. Furthermore, the strain associated with unaffordable housing across child development remains an underexplored avenue.
Housing Cost Burden and Parenting Aggression
Financial hardship is associated with increased risk for aggressive parenting and maltreatment at all developmental stages (Barboza-Salerno, 2024; Conrad-Hiebner & Byram, 2020). Children in low-income households experience a five-fold risk for maltreatment compared to their peers (Sedlak, 2010). Enrollment in general financial assistance programs such as Temporary Aid for Needy Families (TANF) has been found to reduce the likelihood of recidivism in child welfare-involved families (Jonson-Reid et al., 2010), suggesting that support for meeting basic needs lowers risk for ongoing adverse parenting requiring intervention. Inadequate resources to meet basic needs can create parental stress and conflict (Conger et al., 2010) that can lead to aggressive parenting behaviors (Warren & Font, 2015). Children in families who struggle to meet basic needs tend to display more health and behavior problems (Bøe et al., 2012), which can also elevate risk for parenting aggression due to increased demands on parents’ attention and resources (Jaudes & Mackey-Bilaver, 2008).
Millions of families across the U.S. struggle to pay monthly housing costs, (Kids Count Data Center, 2022; Kull & Coley, 2014). Housing is on average the largest expense for households of nearly all income levels (Pew Charitable Trusts, 2016; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2023), and the vast majority of low-income families are severely cost-burdened by housing (Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University, 2023; Kids Count Data Center, 2022). The supply of affordable rental units shrunk while the number of cost-burdened households ballooned between 2003 and 2009, and trends failed to recover in the wake of the Great Recession (Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University, 2011). The post-COVID economic crisis further eroded affordability as median rents and housing process soared and vacancies hit record lows (Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University, 2023). The number of affordable housing options available to the lowest income households continues to decline (Aurand et al., 2023). When more of the household budget is allocated toward housing, families experience increased financial strain, lower discretionary spending, and high stress that can affect family functioning (Lino et al., 2017; Marçal et al., 2023; Rice et al., 2019). Low-income families who struggle to afford their basic needs each month display higher rates of anxiety, depression, and parental conflict (Guan et al., 2022) that can interfere with positive, healthy parenting (Ponnet, 2014).
Although a large body of research links financial hardship – including housing hardship – with adverse parenting, less is known about the specific role of housing cost burden. Exposure to severe housing crises such as eviction or homelessness have been associated with adverse parenting (Marçal, 2018; Park et al., 2015), but these events temporarily remove housing costs, pose different challenges to families, and impact comparatively far fewer families than does ongoing housing cost burden (Desmond et al., 2013; Eviction Lab, 2022; Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University, 2023). Whereas approximately 100,000 children experience homelessness each year (de Sousa et al., 2022), more than 20 million experiencing housing cost burden (Kids Count Data Center, 2022). Housing cost burden has been independently associated with both physical and psychological aggression toward school-age children (Marçal, 2022) independent of other types of housing hardship, suggesting unique risk associated with the struggle to afford rent or mortgage payments month in and month out for low-income parents.
Housing Cost Burden’s Impacts on Parenting Across Development
Even less is known about the impact of housing cost burden across child development. A developmental psychopathology perspective (Cicchetti, 2016) highlights the significance of the ecological environment – family, neighborhood, broader community – in shaping experiences across developmental stages. As children progress from early childhood to school age to adolescence, risks for adverse parenting and maltreatment evolve as a function of both normative development as well as contextual factors (Maguire-Jack et al., 2022). Interventions for families with toddlers experiencing housing cost burden, for example, may require different supports than those targeting families with adolescents.
Housing cost burden may vary over time, as well as its impact on parenting. The context of housing insecurity may interact with parent and child characteristics to drive risk for aggression (Belsky, 1993). Parents’ inability to afford housing reliably has been associated with increased risk for both physical and psychological aggression toward children in middle childhood (Marçal, 2022), but evidence of this link across different developmental stages is lacking. The high costs of childcare (Abrassart & Bonoli, 2015; Chaudry et al., 2011; Rice et al., 2019) may intensify impacts of housing cost burden before children reach school-age, whereas costs associated with food, transportation, clothing, and extracurricular activities may increase in middle childhood and adolescence (Lino et al., 2017). Furthermore, children’s awareness of and responses to financial hardship may evolve across development, emerging as peer relationships and comparisons gain salience in adolescence, and impacting the parent-child relationship to drive differential risks for aggression in parenting over time (Font & Berger, 2015; Villodas et al., 2012). Adverse developmental consequences of repeated adverse parenting increase with age (Jaffee & Maikovich-Fong, 2011; Li & Godinet, 2014), making it imperative to reduce early as well as ongoing exposure to prevent maltreatment and support healthy child and youth development.
Present Study
Parent-child relationships evolve tremendously across the transition from early childhood to adolescence. Financial hardship can uniquely strain families such that parenting is impacted over time, but few studies examine the nature of this evolving relationship across child development from preschool age to mid-adolescence in context of housing cost burden. The present study investigated the relationship between housing cost burden and aggression in parenting among mothers as children age from 3 to 15 years old. Specifically, we tested the following research question: How does housing cost burden affect trajectories of physical and psychological aggression from early childhood to adolescence? Findings will fill an important gap in the literature by identifying the link from housing cost burden to maltreatment risk across development, informing efforts at early maltreatment detection and prevention.
Methods
Data
Sample Description.
a0-12 scale.
b0-6 scale.
Measures
Dependent Variable
The primary outcomes of interest were two types of parenting aggression – physical aggression and psychological aggression. Both constructs were measured using the Conflict Tactics Scale, Parent-Child version (Straus et al., 1998) at the Years 3, 5, 9, and 15 interviews. Because full scales were not available at all waves, measurement was limited to the common behaviors captured at all four waves. Physical aggression captured the frequency with which mothers self-reported hitting or slapping children with a bare hand or an object in the past year. Psychological aggression captured the frequency with which mothers self-reported yelling, screaming, or cursing at the child in the past year. Both outcomes were measured using two items at Years 3, 5, and 9 and one item at Year 15 on a Likert-type scale (0 = never, 1 = once, 2 = twice, 3 = 3–5 times, 4 = 6–10 times, 5 = 11–20 times, 6 = more than 20 times); only one item was used at Year 15 because all three behaviors were combined in a single question.
Responses from the two items in the first three waves were averaged, whereas the raw score from Year 15 was used such that scores ranged from 0 to 6 at all waves where higher scores indicated greater incidence of behaviors.
Independent Variable
The primary predictor of parenting aggression was housing cost burden. Housing cost burden captured the extent to which mothers were unable to afford their housing costs each month. Mothers reported whether they had missed a rent or mortgage payment in the past 12 months due to inability to pay (1 = yes, 0 = no) at the Years 3, 5, 9, and 15 interviews.
Time-Invariant Covariates
Mother demographics and household characteristics that are not expected to change over time were drawn from the Baseline interview, at the time of the child’s birth. Mother’s race was self-reported and categorized as White, Black, Hispanic/Latina, and Other. Mother’s age at child’s birth was self-reported as her continuous age in years at the time the study focal child was born. Child gender was reported dichotomously (1 = male, 0 = female) by mothers.
Time-Varying Covariates
An additional set of covariates expected to change over time were measured at each wave. Three dichotomous items on housing hardships independent of housing cost burden experienced in the past 12 months were reported at each interview: whether (1 = yes, 0 = no) mothers had been evicted from a house or apartment, doubled up (moved in with others), or experienced at least one night homeless. Household income was measured continuously in dollars. Mothers reported whether (1 = yes, 0 = no) they were married and/or cohabitating with an intimate partner and whether (1 = yes, 0 = no) they had received a college degree at each wave. Finally, mothers responded to four four-point Likert-type items (1 = strongly disagree to 4 = strongly agree) assessing the extent to which they struggled with the demands of parenting (e.g. “Being a parent is harder than I thought” and “I feel trapped by my responsibilities as a parent”). Items were summed to create a continuous measure of parenting stress whereby higher scores indicated higher levels of stress.
Analytic Approach
The current study used latent growth curve modeling (LGCM) with two separate outcomes (i.e. physical and psychological aggression). Modeling allowed for changes over time in parenting aggression as well as changes for mothers based on individual demographics and variation in housing cost burden.
Both outcomes were measured continuously and tested the same pathways between the dichotomized independent variable of interest, housing cost burden, and physical (Figure 1) and psychological (Figure 2) aggression in parenting. First, unconditional LGCM assessed the intercepts and slopes of both dependent variables over time (Curran et al., 2010). Next, the key independent variable of housing cost burden was included along with time-varying and time-invariant predictors. The conditional models included both concurrent and lagged effects of housing cost burden on parenting aggression outcomes. Intercept and slope growth factors were regressed on time-invariant predictors, whereas parenting aggression was regressed on time-varying covariates at each wave. Model fit was assessed using the Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA), the comparative fit index (CFI), and the standardized root mean residual (SRMR) for both models. RMSEA values less than 0.05, CFI values larger than 0.9, and SRMR values less than 0.08 were considered to indicate strong fit (Bollen, 2014; Yuan & Bentler, 2000). Structural model of the test between housing cost burden and psychological aggression from age 3 to age 15. Structural model of the test between housing cost burden and physical aggression from age 3 to age 15.
All missing data was handled with multiple imputation by chained equations (MICE) with predictive mean matching (Morris et al., 2014). In this approach, missing values are treated as dependent variables in regressions with all other variables in the dataset serving as predictors; regressions thus leverage all available information to generate unbiased estimates for missing values (Azur et al., 2011). MICE is a strong choice due to its ability to handle complex survey designs and large portions of missing data (Lee & Huber, 2011). Data management and imputation were conducted using R Version 4.3.1 and growth modeling was conducted using Mplus Version 8.10.
Results
Latent Growth Factors for Physical Psychological Aggression Unconditional Models.
***p < .001.
Time-Invariant Covariates.
Note. Table presents standardized coefficients; *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.
Time-Varying Predictors of Psychological Aggression.
*p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.
Time-Varying Predictors of Physical Aggression.
Note. Table presents standardized coefficients; *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.
Discussion
The current study sought to understand the extent to which housing hardships were associated with psychological and physical aggression in parenting within and across time, from child ages 3 to 15. The associations found between housing cost burden and parenting aggression are consistent with prior work demonstrating an association between various aspects of material hardship (Conrad-Hiebner & Byram, 2020; Barboza-Salerno, 2024) and child maltreatment risk, including housing problems specifically (Austin et al., 2020; Marçal, 2018; Marçal, 2022a; Marçal, 2022b; Warren & Font, 2015). The current study is the first to examine the cascading effects of housing cost burden over time, and to examine how housing cost burden impacts risk for child maltreatment over key developmental stages of children.
We found that housing cost burden was associated with psychological aggression within time at ages 3, 5, and 9; but not at age 15. Although we found this concurrent effect, we did not find a lagged effect between housing burden experienced at earlier waves and later psychological aggression. The absence of a lagged effect suggests that the stress associated with inability to afford housing may have negative impacts on the way in which parents engage with their children, in terms of their verbal and emotional interactions with the child, including name-calling and threatening to hit the child. While this happens concurrently with the experience of inability to afford housing, it does not appear to create higher likelihood of psychological aggression over time. The lack of a lagged effect in the findings suggest important opportunities for prevention, such that a reduction in housing cost burden and assistance with paying for housing is expected to have immediate improvements on psychological aggression.
Physical aggression, on the other hand, had longer-lasting fallout from housing cost burden. Specifically, we found that housing cost burden at age 3 was associated with higher levels of physical aggression in parenting at ages 3, 5, and 9 and that housing cost burden at age 5 was associated with physical aggression at age 15. These findings suggest that housing cost burden experienced when a child is preschool age (age 3) is a critical experience for parents that increases the risk for physical aggression within time as well as across time up through age 9. This finding was also present in cost burden experienced when a child was young school age (age 5) on physical aggression experienced at age 15. The experience of inability to afford housing at a time when the demands of parenting are also very high may be especially stressful for parents, in a way that puts them at risk for changes in the parent-child relationship and the way in which parents respond to their child that lasts out into adolescence. In contrast to the psychological aggression outcomes, the effect of housing cost burden on physical aggression is long-lasting. It increases the risk for physical aggression within time at age 3, but it also lasts long after the experience of cost burden. This finding suggests that there are fundamental changes in the way in which the parent responds to the child that are repeated over time. These findings suggest that intervening early in housing cost burden on families, when children are pre-school and early-school age, is likely to have long-lasting impacts on reducing physical maltreatment risk into adolescence. The finding that housing cost burden experienced at child age 3 relates to physical aggression at ages 3, 5, and 9 but not at age 15; and that housing cost burden experienced at child age 5 relates to physical aggression at child age 15 suggests that as housing cost burden is especially impactful on parenting when it happens in early childhood. These findings suggest an opportunity for intervention – if housing cost burden is reduced in early childhood (ages 3–5), there is likely to be lower risk for physical maltreatment in the longer-term.
The latent growth curve model also allowed us to examine patterns of aggressive parenting over time. Consistent with national data, we found that aggression in parenting overall decreased over the time period from child age 3 to 15 (Administration for Children and Families, 2024). Risk for child maltreatment is highest among the youngest children, who are the most vulnerable as they are most reliant on their caregivers for meeting more of their everyday needs. Toddlers require more hands-on attention from their parents compared to a child who is age 9 or 15, and spend more time at home with their primary caregivers (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2022). Younger children are also at an earlier developmental stage, which results in lower self-regulation (Montroy et al., 2016; Willoughby et al., 2011) and communication skills (Manning et al., 2019) that can drive more disruptive behaviors requiring correction from parents. Parents who are experiencing high levels of stress may rely on harsher forms of discipline that can carry over into psychologically and physically abusive behaviors. As children age and their physical reliance on caregivers decrease, the risk for these harsher forms of discipline decreases. School-age children and teenagers, for example, spend more time away from home while in school, at after-school activities, and with friends (Austin et al., 2020; Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2022). These times away from parents provide both respite for parents and reduce the opportunity for abusive behaviors to occur (Austin et al., 2020). Finally, as children get older and grow larger, they are less vulnerable to physical attacks from their parents, as they are more able to defend themselves compared to young children (Austin et al., 2020).
Trajectories in adverse parenting further varied significantly by maternal characteristics. Black mothers displayed higher levels of physical aggression when children were age 3 compared to White mothers, but faster declines in physically aggressive parenting over time. Hispanic mothers were less likely to engage in either type of aggressive parenting over time compared to White mothers. This converges with earlier findings suggesting Black parents are more likely to spank young children than other groups, whereas non-native born (overrepresented among Hispanic) mothers are less likely (MacKenzie et al., 2011). Prior research suggests cultural differences by race in approval of physical punishment (Duong et al., 2024; Su et al., 2019). Mothers’ age was negatively associated with aggression in parenting, likewise converging with earlier research that suggests children of very young mothers face higher risk for maltreatment (Smith et al., 2024). Greater maturity and experience may enable mothers to better regulate emotions and lean on their support systems during the challenges of parenting. The present study thus indicates that trajectories in aggressive parenting may likewise vary by maternal characteristics above and beyond housing (Belsky, 1993).
Developmental trajectories in the present study, for which data collection occurred approximately 2003–2015, unfolded against the backdrop of the Great Recession and ensuing housing crisis. Between 2007 and 2009, the affordable housing supply declined and cost burden for low-income households soared (Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University, 2011). Families in the present study were likely impacted by these national level trends at the Year 9 wave, when rates of cost burden in the analytic sample indeed spiked. Similar trends reemerged in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, with reductions in affordable housing and increased cost burden for low-income families with children (Gartland, 2021; Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University, 2020), but effects could not be observed in the present study. Future research should examine the impacts of exogenous shocks to the low-income rental housing market on family functioning and risk for maltreatment.
Nonetheless, findings suggest that increasing affordable housing stock for families may decrease psychological and physical aggression in parenting. More than 20 million children experience housing cost burden (Kids Count Data Center, 2022) and there remains an inadequate supply of affordable housing in all 50 U.S. states (Aurand et al., 2023). Parents who are struggling financially face high levels of stress that may decrease their ability to deal with everyday parenting demands in proactive ways. As a result, decreasing housing cost burden in families may reduce the associated stress in a way that allows them to reduce their reliance on harsh discipline and abusive behaviors (Guan et al., 2022; Lino et al., 2017; Marçal et al., 2023; Ponnet, 2014; Rice et al., 2019; Ryu & Fan, 2023). Interventions such as universal basic income (Bogle et al., 2022) and widely accessible housing subsidies (Reina & Lee, 2023) are effective at reducing cost burden and keeping families housed. Prioritizing households with children to receive preventative housing services that boost affordability (de Sousa et al., 2022) offers promise for reducing family violence long-term.
The current study has limitations that must be considered when considering its implications. First, the data relied on an oversample of unmarried mothers from 20 large urban cities. This sampling strategy led to an overrepresentation of lower income mothers. As such, the extent to which the findings may generalize to higher income and non-urban mothers is unknown. Second, the study relied on a single dichotomous item of whether parents had missed a rent or mortgage payment in the past year due to inability to pay and additional context about the household economic status was measured using income; while this does capture an element of housing unaffordability, it does not necessarily indicate families who may have had trouble making housing payments but forwent other necessities in order to do so. It is therefore possible that this measure missed a portion of parents equally distressed by housing costs who may have likewise experienced increased risk for engaging in adverse parenting. Likewise, it is possible that were a more detailed needs-to-income ratio collected, more nuance in housing versus non-housing cost burden could have been detected and further distinguished risk. Third, the parenting aggression measures in this study were based on parent self-report, and as such are subject to social desirability bias. Additionally, at age 15, the number of parenting items was significantly reduced; from 5 items for each subscale, to only a single psychological aggression item and a single physical aggression item. As such, the measure at age 15 may underestimate the level of aggression occurring at that timepoint and may therefore have limited our ability to detect associations; the observed reduction in both types of aggressive parenting behaviors when children reach adolescence may be overestimated in the present study. Fourth, there are possible omitted variables that may be affecting the findings. For example, mothers who face a high housing cost burden may be more likely to have lower levels of social support, which could be contributing to aggression in parenting. We have attempted to control for confounding factors, but are limited by the secondary nature of the dataset. Therefore, there may be unmeasured variables that confound the relationship between housing cost burden and aggression in parenting. Finally, the analytic sample was limited to mothers who retained custody of children throughout the study to allow examination of the children’s living environment and exposure to maltreatment; while the number of children removed from their mothers due to maltreatment was extremely low in the overall FFCW sample, it is possible that limiting the analytic sample in this way left out families with the most severe maltreatment risk.
Conclusion
Housing cost burden is a stressful factor in parents’ lives that may influence their ability to care for their children. Difficulty affording housing is associated with higher levels of psychological aggression toward children in the immediate-term and physical aggression of children in the long term. Social welfare policies must address the availability of affordable housing stock and assistance to families to afford housing. Effective child maltreatment prevention involves support to the entire family unit, including their ability to meet their families’ basic housing needs.
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) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study was supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) of the National Institutes of Health under award numbers R01HD036916, R01HD039135, and R01HD040421, as well as a consortium of private foundations. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.
