310 - Associations between Profiles of Parental Employment Quality and Child Mental Health

Poster Number: 310
Publication Number: 310.1710

Background: Children depend on their parents’ employment to meet their basic needs and prevent the negative effects of poverty. Employment quality (including hours and schedules, employment stability, adequacy of wages) is a key social determinant of health for adults. While it is common to address parental employment status in child health research, literature exploring the relationship between parental employment quality and child mental health is extremely limited.

Objective: To measure associations between profiles parental employment quality and child mental health.

Design/Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study using the 2014 Ontario Child Health Study (OCHS) survey data. Dependent variable was child mental health (internalizing and externalizing symptoms) measured using the OCHS Emotional Behavioural Scales (EBS). Independent variables were profiles of parental employment quality. Separately for dual parent and single parent households, for both mothers and fathers, we used latent class analysis (LCA) to characterize patterns of parental employment quality. Indicators of employment quality were employment status, hours, stability and income. The independent variable in our model was a single categorical variable including classes for dual parent and single parent households. We used linear regression models to measure associations, adjusted for sociodemographic characteristics.

Results: Our final sample consisted of 9819 children. LCA of two parent households yielded three classes of parental employment quality (Table 1): 1) two parents working, high quality jobs with income distributed across quintiles 2-5; 2) father full-time/mother part-time with variable quality jobs, income distributed across quintiles 1-3; 3) both parents with lower quality, lower-paying jobs (table 1). LCA of single parent households yielded two classes (Table 2): 1) high quality, moderate income; 2) lower quality, lower income (table 2). Compared to children with parents in class 1 (high quality employment), children with parents in all other classes had significantly higher EBS scores indicating greater mental health and behaviour concerns (p < 0.001 for all), with class 3 showing the highest effect size (table 3).

Conclusion(s): Lower quality parental employment characterized by long hours, irregular schedules and low income was associated with poorer child mental health. Understanding the relationships between parental employment quality and child health can meaningfully inform policies (labor policy) as well as clinical interventions which seek to address social determinants of health.