When a family's breadwinner loses a job, children can face adverse effects from the sudden downturn in finances and associated stresses. A family in such dire straits might have trouble providing nutritious meals, maintaining a safe environment or hampering the children's development because of depression and an increase in parental irritability.
Julia Isaacs, a visiting scholar at the Institute for Research on Poverty with the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a senior fellow at the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C., is an expert on poverty, child and family policy and economic mobility. She said such circumstances can have a major impact.
“If the sole parent loses their job, that is not optimal for child development because there is psychological and economical stress, parents arguing, and they can become more authoritarian in their parenting,” Isaacs said.
An early sign that a child is faltering when a parent loses a job is their how they perform in school, she said. Low math scores and poor attendance are a key indicators that they aren't doing well.
“When a parent is out of work, grades diminish,” Isaacs said.
The effects of job loss can also follow a child into adulthood.
“There is a lower rate of college attendance and lower future earnings” for children who endure long-term job loss in their families, she said.
