Hidden dynamics of economic hardship: Characterizing economic unpredictability and its role on self-regulation in early childhood.

ABSTRACT: Economic hardship is known to shape children's self-regulation, yet little is understood about how fluctuations in hardship unfold over time and whether different patterns of unpredictability carry unique developmental consequences. Using a socioeconomically diverse sample, we tracked families' subjective economic hardship across 15-36 monthly assessments and applied an environmental statistics framework to quantify four indices of unpredictability: changepoints in mean, changepoints in variance, coefficient of variation, and noise. PCA identified two distinct forms of economic unpredictability: one marked by frequent, unpredictable hardship, and another by infrequent but abrupt hardship. Economic unpredictability was disproportionately experienced by racially minoritized and lower-income

SUBMITTER: DeJoseph ML 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12773789 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature