Pathways of risk and resilience between neighborhood socioeconomic conditions and parenting

•We examine pathways from neighborhood socioeconomic conditions to parenting.•Multilevel models are used to look at individual parenting behaviors.•Neighborhood concentrated affluence predicts neighborhood resources.•Neighborhood resources are associated with less physically aggressive parenting.

This study examined pathways between neighborhood socioeconomic conditions (concentrated affluence and poverty), neighborhood resources and collective efficacy, and three parenting behaviors: warmth, harshness, and physical aggression. Data were drawn from the 3-year-old cohort of the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, a neighborhood-based study (N = 999). Multilevel path models revealed that greater neighborhood affluence was indirectly associated with mothers' lower reports of physical aggression with their children via more neighborhood services for children, as reported by an independent sample of neighborhood residents. However, analyses using propensity score weights suggest the association between neighborhood affluence and parental aggression may be due to selection. Results are discussed with respect to implications for preventing child maltreatment.