Poster Session 4: Relationship Dissolution and Coparenting

Presenters: William Stanford, Ted Futris, Evin Richardson, Kalsea Koss, Geoffrey Brown

Summary
While the impact of financial distress on interparental relationship quality is established (e.g., Barton et al., 2015), the buffering effect of perceived social support (PSS) has received less attention. Couples facing financial distress may draw strength from their family and friends, allowing for practical or emotional support. This support may generate spill-over effects into the co-parenting relationship as partners are less psychologically burdened, less likely to be conflictual, and more likely to be supportive. Using data from 246 couples engaged in child welfare services, our findings show, for mothers, the association between coparenting relationship quality and her own and her partner's financial distress are moderated by her PSS. Additionally, father's PSS moderates the association between mother's financial distress and his perception of coparenting.

Objectives
-- To analyze the effects of financial distress on the co-parenting relationship quality of married versus unmarried couples.
-- To examine how perceived social support moderates the association between financial distress and coparenting.
-- To assess variations in how perceived social support influences the association between financial distress and coparenting by gender.

Subject Codes: coparenting, economics, context
Population Codes: couples/coupled, low income, diverse but not representative
Method and Approach Codes: actor-partner interdependence model (APIM), dyadic analysis, structural equation modeling (SEM)