Individual Measures / Material Measures / Making Ends Meet

Material Measures

Making Ends Meet

Economic / Material / Financial Hardship

Material Disadvantage / Deprivation

Income Volatility / Economic Losses

Family / Household Financial Resources

Making Ends Meet

Measures of making ends meet capture whether income is sufficient to meet financial obligations.

Measure

Source: Vinokur AD, Price RH, Caplan RD. Hard times and hurtful partners: How financial strain affects depression and relationship satisfaction of unemployed persons and their spouses. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 1996;71(1):166-179.

Psychometric properties: Cronbach’s alpha coefficients were .86 to .88 for two data collection waves.

Measure

Source: Ge X, Conger RD, Lorenz FO, et al. Linking family economic hardship to adolescent distress. Journal of Research on Adolescence. 1992;2(4):351-378.

Psychometric properties: Not reported.

I have enough money to meet my expenses.

  • Strongly agree

  • Agree

  • Neither agree nor disagree

  • Disagree

  • Strongly disagree

I have difficulty paying monthly bills.

  • No difficulty at all

  • A little difficulty

  • Some difficulty

  • Quite a bit difficulty

  • A great deal of difficulty

I have money left at the end of the month.

  • More than enough

  • Quite a bit

  • A little bit

  • Not enough.

Measure

Source: Conger RD, Conger KJ, Matthews LS, Elder GH. Pathways of economic influence on adolescent adjustment. American Journal of Community Psychology. 1999;27(4):519-541.

Psychometric properties: The three items were standardized and summed for each parent (a = .84 for mothers and .81 for fathers).

How much difficulty have you had paying your bills?

  • A great deal of difficulty

  • Quite a bit of difficulty

  • Some difficulty

  • A little difficulty

  • No difficulty at all

Generally, at the end of each month, did you end up with:

  • More than enough money left over

  • Some money left over

  • Just enough to make ends meet

  • Almost enough to make ends meet

  • Not enough to make ends meet

Family income never seems to catch up with expenses.

  • Strongly disagree

  • Disagree

  • Neither agree nor disagree

  • Agree

  • Strongly agree

Individual Measures / Material Measures / Making Ends Meet

Making Ends Meet

Measures of making ends meet capture whether income is sufficient to meet financial obligations.