Contexts of hardship, household labor responsibility, and adolescent development.

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The present study examines the relationship between contexts of familial hardship, adolescents' household labor responsibility, and well-being. Adolescents' household labor is examined within and outside of contexts of hardship, such as working poverty, single parent families, and families in which a parent is experiencing alcohol-related problems, depression, or a health condition.
Mean levels of household labor responsibility and adolescents' likelihood of providing high levels of responsibility were compared across hardship contexts, using analysis of covariance and logistic regression. Building on previous literature, three different types of household tasks were examined: family labor, self care, and sibling care. Analyses were examined for all adolescents, as well as for boys and girls separately.
The results of these analyses suggest that adolescents, particularly girls, in certain contexts of hardship do indeed take on higher levels of household labor responsibility. Further, the greater the number of hardships experienced, the greater the levels of responsibility adolescents took on. These increased levels of responsibility were concentrated in family labor and self care tasks and appeared in both adolescents' mean levels of responsibility and their likelihood of providing extensive levels of responsibility.
The second set of analyses use structural equation modeling to examine the relationship between responsibility and six domains of adolescent adjustment: anxiety, depression, delinquent behavior, academic achievement, mastery, and self esteem. Building upon previous research and theory, it was suggested that the relationship between responsibility and adjustment might differ within and outside of contexts of hardship.
The results of these analyses suggest that the implications of responsibility for adjustment do indeed differ across these contexts. The results were strongest and most consistent within the domains of anxiety, delinquency, and self esteem, for adolescents in families with a depressed parent, and for the responsibility domains of self care and family labor. Greater levels of responsibility were related to lower levels of anxiety and higher levels of self-esteem for adolescents experiencing hardship while they were not typically related to functioning inn more-privileged adolescents. Further, greater responsibility within contexts of hardship showed some relation to higher levels of delinquency, whereas responsibility and delinquency tended to bear no relation in more privileged contexts.