Superwoman Schema and Black women’s mental health

High Financial Strain in Combination with Internalized Expectations to “Be Strong” are Linked to Worse Mental Health among Black Women in Early Mid-life

Christy L. Erving, Izraelle I. McKinnon, Courtney S. Thomas Tobin, Miriam E. Van Dyke, Raphiel Murden, Reneé H. Moore, Bianca Booker, Viola Vaccarino, Tené T. Lewis

Black women experience a cultural mandate to exude strength, suppress emotions, resist vulnerability, succeed despite structural barriers, and aid others selflessly. To capture this constellation of expectations imposed by society and internalized by Black women, Cheryl L. Woods-Giscombé developed the construct of Superwoman Schema [1]. And while Superwoman Schema ostensibly characterizes Black women in a positive light, recent studies have demonstrated that Black women who endorse dimensions of Superwoman Schema experience worse mental health.

Black women also experience financial strain, which also negatively impacts their mental health. This financial strain is a two-sided story. On one hand, Black women experience disproportionately lower socioeconomic status – typically measured by income and educational attainment – than do White men and women from other racial or ethnic groups. On the other hand, significant numbers of Black women are earning college degrees and entering the middle class. However, many Black women with college degrees are unable to achieve the financial payoffs that typically accrue to college graduates. Indeed, despite Black women earning college degrees at a higher rate than their Black male counterparts, they tend to have lower income and wealth than Black men. In addition, many college-educated Black women carry substantial education debt, with research showing that significant numbers of high-earning Black women (>$80,000 annual income) experience insurmountable student loan debt. At the same time, college-educated women may feel obligated to provide financial assistance to their lower-income family members.  

Given this high proportion who carry debt, coupled with financial help that Black women often provide family members, using traditional measures of socioeconomic status such as income or educational attainment will likely be inadequate to capture the role of financial strain on Black women’s mental health.

This brief reports on a recent study [2] in which the authors used an intersectional lens to explore how multiple dimensions of Black women’s lives intersect to impact their mental health. They focus on a time of life, from ages 30 to 45, when women are expected to fulfill their gendered obligations to take care of family (both their own children and aging family members) while also attempting to build and advance in their careers. Specifically, the authors explored the impacts of Superwoman Schema, socioeconomic status, and financial strain on the depressive symptoms experienced by Black women in established adulthood, also known as early mid-life.

Key Findings

• Impact of Superwoman Schema on Black women’s mental health. Black women who more frequently endorsed the Superwoman Schema dimensions “obligation to help others” and “obligation to suppress emotions” experienced higher depressive symptoms. 
• Role of socioeconomic indicators on Black women’s mental health
  • Traditional socioeconomic status (SES) indicators, including household income and educational attainment, were not related to depressive symptoms.
  • However, having negative net worth (being in debt) and experiencing financial strain (for example, not being able to make ends meet) were associated with higher depressive symptoms, demonstrating the importance of including more holistic SES measures when analyzing the impact of finances on Black women’s mental health.
• Compounded impact of financial stress and Superwoman Schema on Black women’s mental health. Black women experiencing financial strain were most vulnerable to elevated depressive symptoms when they also strongly endorsed Superwoman Schema, especially the “obligation to help others” and “obligation to suppress emotions” dimensions. See figure.

Policy Implications

Given that Black women in early mid-life endorse Superwoman Schema at high levels, culturally responsive mental health care provision is critical. Superwoman Schema could be leveraged in a therapy context to help Black women process the sources, assets, and liabilities of feeling like they have to “be strong.” In addition, it is critical for policymakers and non-profit community organizations to make all mental health treatment modalities more widely available and financially accessible to Black women throughout their life course.

The inequalities that produce economic disadvantages for U.S. Black women also need to be addressed. Financial investments from large corporations are one means through which financial strain could be reduced for Black women which, in turn, could positively affect their mental health. Programs that invest specifically in improving access to capital and workforce advancement opportunities for Black women, such as Goldman Sach’s recent Black Women Impact Grants and One Million Black Women: Black in Business, demonstrate the value of these investments.

Finally, providing relief from student loan debt would help improve both financial and mental health well-being. Black women average $41,466 undergraduate student loan debt one year after graduation. Black women also tend to have higher student loan debt compared to Black men and women from other racial groups. A federal-level educational debt elimination policy would not only advance the financial well-being of Black women, but millions of other Americans who are buckling under the weight of high educational debt.

Data and Methods

This study uses data from the Mechanisms Underlying the impact of Stress and Emotions (MUSE) on African-American Women’s Health Study. Participants identified as Black or African American, were 30-46 years old, and living in Atlanta, Georgia at the time of data collection (December 2016 to March 2019). A total of 422 women participated in MUSE; 390 had complete information on the financial measures and were included in this study. The 3-hour in-person interviews included questions on depressive symptoms (21-item Beck Depression Inventory); Superwoman Schema (35-item scale covering five dimensions: obligation to present strength, emotion suppression, resistance to vulnerability, motivation to succeed, and obligation to help others); socioeconomic status (household income, educational attainment, homeownership, and net worth); and financial strain (difficulty paying for basic necessities, financial adjustments, and negative financial life events). The authors used ordinary least squares regression models to assess the associations among key study measures and then included interaction terms to assess whether socioeconomic status or financial strain moderated the association between Superwoman Schema and depressive symptoms. The models collectively aimed to explore the independent and interactive effects of Superwoman Schema, socioeconomic status, and financial strain on the mental health of Black women.

References

[1] Woods-Giscombé, C.L. “Superwoman Schema: African American women’s views on stress, strength, and health.” Qualitative Health Research 20(5):668–83. https://doi.org/10.1177/1049732310361892.

[2] Erving, C.L., McKinnon, I.I., Thomas Tobin, C.S., Van Dyke, M.E, Murden, R., Moore, R.H., Booker, B., Vaccarino, V., & Lewis, T.T. (2024). Black women as Superwomen? The mental health effects of Superwoman Schema, socioeconomic status, and financial strain. Social Problems. https://doi.org/10.1093/socpro/spae007.

Suggested Citation

Erving, C.L., McKinnon, I.I., Thomas Tobin, C.S., Van Dyke, M.E, Murden, R., Moore, R.H., Booker, B., Vaccarino, V., & Lewis, T.T. (2024). High financial strain in combination with internalized expectations to “be strong” are linked to worse mental health among Black women in early mid-life. CAPS Research Brief 3(4). https://doi.org/10.26153/tsw/55667.

About the Authors

Christy L. Erving, christy.erving@austin.utexas.edu is an associate professor of sociology, a faculty fellow in the Center on Aging and Population Sciences, a faculty scholar in the Population Research Center and a faculty affiliate in the Humanities, Health & Medicine Program at The University of Texas at Austin. Izraelle I. McKinnon was a PhD student in the Department of Epidemiology at Emory University at the time of publication and is currently a health scientist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Courtney S. Thomas Tobin is an associate professor of Community Health Sciences and the associate dean for Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion at the Fielding School of Public Health at the University of California Los Angeles. Miriam E. Van Dyke is a health scientist in health equity and epidemiologist at Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Raphiel Murden is an assistant research professor in the Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University. Reneé H. Moore is a research professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics; director of the Biostatistics Scientific Collaboration Center (BSC); and associate dean for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging, Drexel University Dornsife School of Public Health. Bianca Booker is a research interviewer at Emory University School of Medicine. Viola Vaccarino is the Wilton Looney Professor of Cardiovascular Research in the Department of Epidemiology, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, with a joint appointment in the Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiology, Emory University School of Medicine. Tené T. Lewis is a professor in the Department of Epidemiology, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University.

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI): R01HL130471 (PI: Lewis), R01HL158141 (PI: Lewis), K24HL163696 (awarded to Lewis), and T32 HL130025 (awarded to Vaccarino to support McKinnon). This research was supported by grant P30AG066614, awarded to the Center on Aging and Population Sciences at The University of Texas at Austin by the National Institute on Aging, grant R01AG054624, awarded to Debra Umberson, principal investigator, by the National Institute on Aging and by grant P2CHD042849, awarded to the Population Research Center at The University of Texas at Austin by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and the Michigan Center for Urban African American Aging Research (MCUAAAR). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. Erving was also supported by the Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship and the (former) Woodrow Wilson Foundation Career Enhancement Fellowship.

This Center on Aging and Population Sciences (CAPS) research brief is published in partnership with UT Austin’s Population Research Center, which provides CAPS with high-quality services and resources to facilitate large-scale, population-based aging research.