Differential Relationships Between the Adequacy of Different Types of Family Resources and Psychological Health and Well-Being : A Meta-Analysis

This paper includes analyses of the relationships between the adequacy of three different types of family resources (basic resources, financial resources, time availability) and the psychological health and well-being of parents and other primary caregivers of children and adolescents birth to 18 years of age at-risk for poor outcomes. Meta-analysis was used to determine (a) the effect sizes between each type of family resource and psychological health and well-being, (b) the relative importance of each type of resource in explaining variations in psychological functioning, and (c) if the number of items used to measure each type of family resource moderated the relationships between family resources and psychological functioning. The study included 14 studies (N = 2,980 study participants) conducted in the United States between 1986 and 2018. Nine different scales were used to measure the study participants’ psychological health and well-being. All three types of family resources were significantly related to the study participants’ psychological functioning. The size of effect between time availability and health and well-being was larger than the sizes of effect between basic and financial resources and psychological functioning. The larger the number of items used to measure financial resources, the poorer the study participants’ health and well-being. In contrast, the larger the number of items used to measure time availability, the better was the study participants’ psychological functioning. The overall pattern of results is consistent with both family stress theories and family systems theories in terms of the importance of family resources as a determinant of healthy psychological functioning. Additionally, the different sets of analysis provided converging evidence about the relative importance of time availability as a family resource for explaining variations in the study participants’ psychological health and well-being