This study examines the link between household food insecurity and child behavior problems mediated through parental characteristics (parenting stress, parental warmth, psychological distress, and parent’s self-esteem) using two waves of data from the Child Development Supplement in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. Analyses of fixedeffects models are conducted on a low-income sample of 416 children from 249 households. This study finds that the effects of food insecurity on child behavior problems are mediated by parenting stress. However, two robustness tests show different results from those of the fixed-effects models. This inconsistency suggests that the complicated relationship between household food insecurity and child behavior problems needs to be investigated further with different methodology and measures in the future.
Subsequent publication: Huang, J., Oshima, K., Kim, Y., (2010). Does household food insecurity affect parenting and children’s behaviors? Evidence from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). Social Service Review, 84(3), 381–401. doi:10.1086/655821
Project: SEED National Initiative