The reality of economic life for most American households is quite dynamic. Such income instability is an understudied aspect of household’s economic contexts.  Low-wage workers face growing “precariousness” of job security, and research shows high employment dynamics for women in particular.  Such instability may increase economic hardship and stress, disrupt family interactions and reduce mothers’ ability to consistently invest in their children.  Households living on the margins of poverty and struggling to make ends meet may be particularly vulnerable to economic fluctuations, as households may have few options to compensate for losses.  Middle-income households may also be vulnerable, with growing income inequality in the United States and the declining mean net worth of middle-class households.  For these households who may have relatively more resources upon which to rely, income instability could deplete savings and thereby increase the risk of falling into poverty.

Using data from the 2004 panel of the Survey of Income and Program Participation, this study considers how income instability and employment instability, as well as income level, are related to maternal well-being and child routines for low- and middle-income households in the bottom three income quintiles.  The sample is limited to female-headed households with school-aged children (N=4,359). The SIPP is uniquely positioned to address these issues, with detailed monthly measures of income and select family and child outcome measures.  This study aims to answer the following questions: (1) How do employment instability and income instability over a span of three years influence maternal material hardship, warmth and stress, as well as family meal routines, child frequency of participation in organized activities and school engagement? (2) How are these maternal and child processes related to income levels? And how are they related to each other?  First, I model trajectories of monthly household income measured over a period three years to consider the amount of income instability households’ experience.  Second, I examine the associations between income level and income trajectories with maternal well-being and family and child outcomes.  Analyses control for mother’s level of education, initial employment status, marital status, number of children, and presence of a young child.

Preliminary analyses indicate that households’ monthly income level varies significantly in the period of the study (within person random effect was significant across all time points, ranging from 0.20(0.01) to 0.33(0.01), p<.001), and that household income trajectories vary significantly from each other. Higher intercept values of household income are related to higher levels of child participation in organized activities (β=0.34, p<.001), lower maternal stress (β=-.04, p<.001), and lower family meal routines (β=-0.11, p<.01).  Linear slopes of income significantly predict meal routines (β=-2.15, p<.01) as do quadratic slopes (β=-4.23, p<.05), indicating that a non-linear decline in income over time was related to less frequent meals eaten together as a family.  Quadratic slopes predict participation in organized activities (β=2.76, p<.001), indicating that non-linear increases in income predict higher rates of activity participation.  Results from employment instability will also be presented.  Implications for safety net policies for families will be discussed.