Family stress and coping in the experience of employment precarity: A theoretical framework

Employment stability has been the experience for many wage-labor participants in the United States, characterized by wage adequacy, scheduling certainty, and work autonomy. However, employment contracts increasingly include precarious work factors such as short-term work arrangements, nonstandard hours, and decreased access to healthcare and family supportive benefits. Prior family stress research theorized economic hardship as an emergent crisis or a one-time event that affects dyadic relationships between parents and children or intimate partners. In this paper, we define employment precarity as a chronic condition caused by multiple precarious work factors shaped by social stratification in the labor market. We propose a new theoretical model, the employment precarity family stress model, to understand how diverse families experience precarious work factors, use resources to cope, make meaning of their work situations, and practice resilience amid cyclical or chronic economic hardships.