Mediating Effects of Financial Resilience Between Family Economic Adversity and Mental Health: Population Heterogeneity in Multiple Subgroups.

Purpose: Family economic adversity is important for predicting mental health. Stress process theory elucidates how stressors, particularly in the socioeconomic domain, impair health and well-being. Resilience theory further identifies various mediating and counteractive factors in the stress-coping process. Previous literature has primarily focused on the psychological aspect of resilience, neglecting the importance of financial coping capabilities and resources. As a specific financial capability for coping with emergencies and crises, financial resilience is perceived to improve health and well-being. However, the roles of financial resilience in family processes from economic adversity to mental health and how these paths are relevant to different populations have been understudied, particularly regarding outcomes like psychological distress, subjective happiness, and life satisfaction.

Methods: This study used data from the China Family Panel Studies with a sample of 3,710 household heads to conduct path analyses to examine the roles of financial resilience between family economic adversity and mental health. Multi-group analyses were used to explore population heterogeneity in the proposed model.

Results: The full sample results reveal that financial resilience significantly mediated the effects of family economic adversity on psychological distress, subjective happiness, and life satisfaction after controlling for socioeconomic covariates in income, education, employment, and subjective socioeconomic status. The model applied to different sexes, migrant status subgroups, residence region subgroups, and younger generations, while showing nonsignificant results amongst older adults over 65.

Conclusion: This study enriches mainstream psychological theories of resilience in stress-health nexuses and family processes by providing novel evidence of financial resilience. It provides practical implications for socioeconomic empowerment and health promotion in the face of adversity and uncertainty. Future research is suggested to explore unique population subgroups in health and family economic issues.