Family Stress Among Youth in Muntinlupa: A Correlational Study on Stress and Materialism

Abstract

The level of materialism has continued to increase across generations. It has resulted to various negative effects in the aspects of well-being of children and adults. One of the main reasons for the continuous increase in the level of materialism among adolescents is family relationships. In this study, the researcher focused on identifying family stress and its levels among students in Muntinlupa, aged 18 to 24, with sibling/s, and understanding the relationship between family stress and materialism. Sequential explanatory method and analytical cross-sectional study design with a correlational sample size of N=194 participants for each group was used. Data analysis for the quantitative part involved independent t-test, ANOVA, and Pearson correlation. After analyzing the data through SPSS 20, seven participants with high level of family stress and materialism were interviewed in English and Filipino for the qualitative part. Case study was employed with key informant interviews as the data collection technique. Results show that participants with separated parents are more likely to have a high level of family stress and materialism; while those with married parents have low levels for both scales at F (4,383) = 9.68, 4.55, p<0.05, respectively. Living with parents and socio-economic status are found significant for the varying levels of family stress and materialism. Also, family stress and materialism are identified to have a significant relationship at r=+0.24, n=388, p<0.01, two-tailed.