Implications of Economic Hardship for Child Well‐Being in Active and Reserve Component U.S. Military Families: Applying the Family Stress Model

The family stress model has guided examinations of how economic hardship is linked to child outcomes with various populations, including military families. However, many studies have relied on smaller convenience samples with insufficient variation to address unique aspects of the military community context that may moderate the associations. Military families' duty status (i.e., full-time versus part-time service) is one such consideration because it can shape access to military-provided financial supports and may have implications for relational processes that are linked to hardship. Grounded in the family stress model, this study leveraged national data from 5529 military families who participated in the U.S. Census Bureau Household Pulse Survey to assess the prevalence of economic hardship, how economic hardship was associated with economic pressure, parent psychological distress, and child mental health, and whether these patterns differed between active-duty (n = 3128) and National Guard/Reserve families (NG/R; n = 2401). On average, active-duty and NG/R respondents similarly reported few economic hardships (M = 0.74 out of 8 for both). Support for the family stress model was observed for both groups. Greater economic hardship was associated with greater economic pressure, while economic pressure was related to more parent psychological distress, and, ultimately, more child mental health symptoms. Notably, parent psychological distress was more strongly associated with child mental health symptoms among active-duty than NG/R families. Findings provide further support for the utility of the family stress model in studying military families while underscoring the importance of considering contextual differences.