When hard times hit harder: The impact of overlapping disadvantages on families

This paper found empirical evidence that US families with overlapping disadvantages are more vulnerable during financial crises, in this case, the 2008 Great Recession. Author Rigaud Joseph reused data from 1,169 US families with dependent children, who were surveyed in Familial Responses to Financial Instability, How the Family Responds to Economic Pressure: A Comparative Study, 2009. It is part of a series of studies distributed by DSDR, which examine the impact of economic factors on family and household relationships. Along with using information reported by the survey respondents about each family’s income and spending compared to the year prior to the Great Recession, Joseph looked at whether the primary caregivers were non-white, female, low-income, older, disabled, less educated, or single. He found that families with intersecting minority identities faced significantly greater financial hardship than those without them. Further, the odds for financial instability grew with the number of identities. Participants with four intersecting minority identities were six times less likely to maintain adequate income and nearly three times more likely to struggle with child-related expenses.