Work & Economics
A decline in social or economic status, often due to job loss or illness.
What is downward mobility?
Social class strongly affects access to this stage of schooling.
What is higher education/college?
For working-class families, a serious illness often leads to this outcome.
What is job or housing loss?
Households headed by this group are most likely to live in poverty.
What are female-headed households?
Despite their circumstances, many families in poverty are still marked by this strength.
What is resilience or resourcefulness?
On average, women earn about this percent of what men earn.
What is 62%?
Youth from downwardly mobile families often take on this kind of debt to try to move up.
What are student loans (often high-interest)?
Besides physical health, poverty strongly affects this type of health.
What is mental health?
Poorer families often rely on this type of care for elderly relatives.
What is unpaid caregiving by family members?
Helping families see struggles as caused by inequality, not personal failure.
What is externalizing problems?
Even with jobs, about this percent of U.S. workers aged 18-64 live in poverty.
What is 7%?
When parents didn’t attend college, children may face this unique challenge.
What is being first-generation in higher education?
Families sometimes rely on this risky strategy to pay for medical care or education.
What is high-interest credit card debt?
Stress from financial instability often leads couples to delay this.
What is marriage?
A major risk for therapists working with multistressed families.
What is burnout?
Consider This: How would you, as a therapist, tend to your own mental health while working with multistressed families?
When people are employed but still cannot make ends meet, it is called this.
What is underemployment?
This type of school support is more available to middle-class children than working-class children.
What are extracurricular activities or enrichment programs?
Poverty creates ongoing stress because of this constant state of instability.
What is uncertainty?
Children in working-class or poor families are more likely to take on this adult role early.
What is contributing financially or caregiving for siblings?
The main goal of therapy with poor families is to connect them to these.
What are community resources and supports?
Many single mothers face financial hardship because of this systemic issue.
What is the gender pay gap?
Discrimination based on both race and class limits these opportunities.
What are educational outcomes and career opportunities?
Families without access to preventive care often rely on this instead.
What is the emergency room?
Wealthier families may hire this kind of support instead of relying on kin.
What are paid helpers or caregivers?
The best framework for understanding families in poverty considers culture, history, and context.
What is the multicontextual life cycle framework?