Benefit cutbacks have been prominent after the Great Recession. The Family Economic Stress Model (FESM) theorizes how financial losses such as those spurred by cutbacks might adversely affect parental and child well-being. Yet, few links with policy have been established. We extend current knowledge by comprehensively assessing how benefits cutbacks may affect parents and their adolescent children. We rely on the first ten waves of the UK Household Longitudinal Study (2009–2019) and an event-study approach to examine the aftermath of an exceptional raft of benefit cutbacks. We find that mothers with lower incomes and single mothers accumulated losses equal to 20–30 percent of their household benefit income. Mothers could not fully compensate for such benefit income losses via their extra earnings, despite increased workforce participation. Financial worries, some forms of material hardship, and mental health worsened among mothers with lower incomes and single mothers exposed to cutbacks. Adolescent socio-emotional difficulties also increased in the period. We find little evidence, though, that cutbacks disrupted parenting. Parents thus display more agency than that accorded by the FESM. Nonetheless, findings point to deepening socioeconomic divides in financial and mental well-being, questioning the rationale for cutbacks.

中文翻译：

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紧缩家庭：英国的福利削减和家庭压力


大衰退后，福利削减一直很突出。家庭经济压力模型 （FESM） 从理论上解释了经济损失（例如由削减开支引起的损失）如何对父母和孩子的福祉产生不利影响。然而，与政策几乎没有建立起联系。我们通过全面评估福利削减如何影响父母及其青少年孩子来扩展当前知识。我们依靠英国家庭纵向研究（2009-2019 年）的前十波和事件研究方法来检查大量特殊福利削减的后果。我们发现，收入较低的母亲和单身母亲累积的损失相当于其家庭福利收入的 20-30%。尽管劳动力参与率有所提高，但母亲无法通过她们的额外收入来完全补偿此类福利收入损失。在收入较低的母亲和面临削减的单身母亲中，经济担忧、某些形式的物质困难和心理健康状况恶化。在此期间，青少年的社会情感困难也有所增加。然而，我们几乎没有发现证据表明削减开支扰乱了育儿方式。因此，父母表现出比 FESM 赋予的更多能动性。尽管如此，研究结果表明，财务和心理健康方面的社会经济鸿沟不断加深，对削减开支的理由提出了质疑。