Abstract
Child poverty leads to various negative consequences, including low self-esteem, which is a risk factor for mental illness, suicide, or poor academic achievement. However, little is known about why child poverty leads to low self-esteem. We aimed to elucidate the association of child poverty and low self-esteem based on the ecological model, which includes family-level, school-level, and community-level factors. Data were obtained from the Adachi Child Health Impact of Living Difficulty (A-CHILD) study in 2016, and participants included 1,652 children in fourth grade (534 pairs), sixth grade (530 pairs), and eighth grade (588 pairs) living in Adachi City, Tokyo, Japan. A questionnaire survey was implemented to assess child poverty, parental mental health, parental involvement with children, parental social capital by caregivers, and self-esteem and school social capital by children. The structural equation model was applied to elucidate the association between child poverty and low self-esteem, using family-level (parental mental health and parental involvement with children), school-level (school social capital), and community-level (parental social capital) factors. Child poverty was associated with low self-esteem. Child poverty leads to poor parental involvement, which can be indirectly associated with poor parental mental health and poor parental social capital, and poor parental involvement was directly or indirectly associated with low self-esteem through poor school social capital. To mitigate the impact of child poverty on low self-esteem, comprehensive health policies targeting family-level (parental mental health and parental involvement with children), school-level (school social capital), and community-level (parental social capital) factors may be effective.
Highlights
Child poverty rates across countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) was 13.5% in 2014 (OECD, 2017), and is increasing in several OECD countries (OECD, 2017)
Children living in poverty showed lower self-esteem (p < 0.001), their parents had lower social capital and a higher Kessler 6 (K6) score (p < 0.001), their parents were more likely to smoke in front of their child (p < 0.001), less likely to talk about school life with their child (p < 0.001), and less likely to cook for their child (p = 0.001)
We found that the association between child poverty and low self-esteem was mediated by family, school, and community-level factors by performing structural equation modeling (SEM)
Summary
Child poverty rates across countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) was 13.5% in 2014 (OECD, 2017), and is increasing in several OECD countries (OECD, 2017). Low self-esteem may influence how childhood poverty affects health, that is, children living in poverty may consider themselves as worthless, which leads to lower levels of self-care (Mann et al, 2004; Hedayati et al, 2012; Poorgholami et al, 2015). Lower self-esteem in childhood lead to behavioral problems such as health-compromising behaviors (e.g., eating disorders) (McGee and Williams, 2000) and criminal behaviors during adulthood (Trzesniewski et al, 2006), which might be caused by peer pressure, that is, individuals with lower self-esteem are more likely to be influenced by others. Adolescents with lower self-esteem are more likely to show physical health problems and limited economic prospects during adulthood (Trzesniewski et al, 2006), which might be caused by low persistence in the face of failure and poor social connectedness
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