Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Hispanic immigrants are the largest and fastest growing immigrant subgroup in the U.S. While Hispanic immigrants bring great strength and cultural diversity, they are also uniquely vulnerable since they are more likely to be low-income and less likely to use public benefits that they are eligible. They are also at increased risk for experiencing depression: Mexican immigrant mothers are likely to experience workplace discrimination, which could contribute to feelings of depression. This is worrisome, as voluminous research links maternal depression to reduced workforce participation and productivity, and adverse child academic, social, and health outcomes. Unfortunately, maternal depression is a widespread phenomenon, impacting up to 24% of mothers with young children, although rates among immigrants are not well established. Although depression is typically responsive to treatment, many depressed mothers, particularly low-income and immigrant mothers, are unlikely to seek treatment. Thus identifying risk factors to prevent or reduce the incidence of depression among immigrant mothers provides a promising avenue for ameliorating this threat to family and child wellbeing for a substantial, growing subpopulation.

One potent yet understudied risk factor for depression is child care instability. Theoretically, the loss of one care arrangement and selection of another can disrupt family routines and cause stress for mothers, which increases depression risk. Although child care instability – multiple care arrangements – is common in the general population, rates among immigrants are unknown. As immigrants are less likely to use formal care and more likely to experience employment disruptions than non-immigrants, child care instability could be especially common among immigrants. If child care instability is associated with increased depression for immigrant mothers, then increasing child care stability by increasing availability of public early education programs and targeting outreach and enrollment efforts to immigrant families is a policy lever for reducing maternal depression for this at-risk group.

Using the nationally representative Early Childhood Longitudinal Study – Birth Cohort (ECLS-B), we estimate the prevalence of child care instability and depression in a sample of Hispanic immigrant mothers who reported using some form of non-maternal child care between the 2- and 4-year waves of the ECLS-B (n ≈ 900). Maternal depressive symptoms at the 4-year wave come from the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D), and child care stability is defined as the length in months of the longest reported care arrangement between the 2- and 4-year waves.

Descriptive results reveal that approximately 4.8% of Hispanic immigrant mothers in our sample experienced clinical levels of depression, defined by a CES-D score of 16 or above, though many experienced depressive symptoms (M=6.95, SD=4.36). In terms of child care stability, 13.10% of mothers experienced two or more arrangements, and the average length of the longest arrangement was about 18 months (SD=11.06).

Next steps include assessing associations between child care instability and maternal depression through multivariate models and testing for moderation by number of care arrangements and income. If results reveal significant links, they will be suggestive of a new avenue for policy intervention to boost the wellbeing of immigrant families.