Resilience or social reproduction? Parental job loss, children’s prosocial development, and caregiving after the Great Recession

BACKGROUNDFamily resilience foregrounds personal and relational transformations that help families overcome adversity. Yet, why and from whom resilience is required is often overlooked. Economic downturns are exemplary sites to examine these questions.OBJECTIVEI study children’s prosocial development and caregiving as an expression of family resilience in households affected by job loss during the Great Recession in Ireland. From a social reproduction perspective, I posit that the demands and capacities for resilience are unequally shared within families, across generations and following a gendered pattern.METHODI rely on cohort data from children’s early years to adolescence (Growing Up in Ireland, 2008-2022) to estimate growth-curve and OLS models for prosocial development and outcomes tied to caregiving.FINDINGSChildren whose mothers experienced job loss exhibit steeper prosocial development. Girls with younger siblings drive this finding. At age 13, the same group is more likely to share and fulfil caregiving duties. Findings suggest that mothers might have leaned on their children to maintain some paid work after job loss, stimulating their daughters’ prosocial development and involvement in caregiving.CONTRIBUTIONThe study highlights how economic downturns reinforce the gendered and generational underpinnings that bind the paid and unpaid work of family resilience.