The results of this study show that for Irish primary school children, the probability of psychiatric illness is positively associated with low IQ and reading difficulties, large family size, being a boy rather than a girl, and having a mother who is dissatisfied with her marriage or her role as mother.
For the mothers of these children, depression is positively associated with having an unemployed husband, and with being dissatisfied with the level of family income, with their relations with their relatives and their neighbours, with the opportunity foe leisure, and with their performance in their role as a parent.
The stress of unemployment, financial difficulties, lack of social support, and inadequate leisure opportunities appears to leave mothers prone to depression, which has the effects of undermining their parenting ability and makes it more likely that their children develop child psychiatric difficulties.
Family unemployment and economic disadvantage significantly effects mothers health.
