Poverty, Family Process, and the Mental Health of Immigrant Children in Canada

• Published in: American journal of public health (1971) 2002-02, Vol.92 (2), p.220-227
• Main Authors: Beiser, Morton, Hou, Feng, Hyman, Ilene, Tousignant, Michel
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Affective Symptoms - ethnology; Biological and medical sciences; Canada; Canada - epidemiology; Child; Child & adolescent mental health; Child Behavior Disorders - ethnology; Child clinical studies; Child, Preschool; Children & youth; Emigration and Immigration - statistics & numerical data; Ethnicity; Families & family life; Family - ethnology; Family - psychology; Family functioning; Female; Health care; Households; Humans; Immigrants; Immigration; Low income groups; Male; Medical sciences; Mental depression; Mental disorders; Mental Health; Miscellaneous; Models, Psychological; Multivariate Analysis; Noncitizens; Parenting - ethnology; Parents & parenting; Poverty; Poverty - ethnology; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; Public health; Regression Analysis; Research and Practice; Society; Variables; Young children
• ISSN: 0090-0036; 1541-0048
• DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.92.2.220

This study examined the differential effects of poverty on the mental health of foreign-born children, Canadian-born children of immigrant parents, and children of non-immigrant parents. Secondary analysis of data from a national Canadian study of children between 4 and 11 years of age was conducted. Compared with their receiving-society counterparts, foreign-born children were more than twice as likely to live in poor families, but they had lower levels of emotional and behavioral problems. The effect of poverty on children's mental health among long-term immigrant and receiving-society families was indirect and primarily mediated by single-parent status, ineffective parenting, parental depression, and family dysfunction. In comparison, the mental health effect of poverty among foreign-born children could not be explained by the disadvantages that poor families often suffer. Poverty may represent a transient and inevitable part of the resettlement process for new immigrant families. For long-stay immigrant and receiving-society families, however, poverty probably is not part of an unfolding process; instead, it is the nadir of a cycle of disadvantage.