Unemployed professionals are suddenly becoming stay-at-home parents. Pink slips are triggering marital woes. College students have dropped out, taken jobs or moved home because their parents can't foot their tuition bills. Some young couples are postponing having children because of job problems.

After earning a six-figure salary and almost all his family's income, Ed Simon was laid off in March from his sales and marketing management job at a consumer products firm. His family is still reeling.

His wife, Lori, used to work a half day so she could be home with the kids. Now she's working more, and Simon is Mr. Mom to Ari, 13, and Daniel, 7. Instead of taking business trips and managing a department, he spends his days clipping coupons and attending parent-teacher conferences.

"It's provided a whole lot of conflict. Now I'm telling my wife she has to spend more time with the kids," says Simon, 43, of Princeton, N.J. "It's a complete role reversal, and it's very tough. My wife comes home, and I'm at the kitchen sink saying, 'You have no idea how hard this is.' "

Mounting research suggests there's a strong connection between economic swings and family stability. Among the major trends:

•Family time affected. Research indicates that a flailing economy forces many working parents to put in longer hours on the job, leaving them with less time for their children. That's because layoffs have intensified job pressures by leaving fewer employees to shoulder the workload. As a result of longer hours, seven in 10 Americans feel they don't have a healthy balance between work and life, according to a May survey by Expedia.com.

But while the workday may be longer for those with jobs, a growing number of parents are experiencing the opposite extreme — they've been laid off, and that means they're staying home.

Long-term unemployment has been spreading fastest in families with young children, according to a study by the Children's Defense Fund in Washington, D.C.

The proportion of families with an unemployed parent jumped by nearly a percentage point to 6.6% from 2000 to 2001 because of the economic slump that began early in 2001, according to the Department of Labor. In an average week in 2001, 4.8 million families had at least one member who was unemployed — a rise of 665,000 families from 2000.

They're fathers like Rich Miller, 48, who found himself out of work in May 2002 when the New York office of his advertising agency closed. Miller started his own media placement company, Smarter Media, and tends bar on the weekends to help make ends meet.

It's been tough on his marriage. Says Miller, "The financial issues add an additional strain and magnify other problems. It's changed our life."

But he can also work from home, which means more time with his 8-year-old son, Joshua. "He does appreciate the time we have together," says Miller of Hamilton Square, N.J.

Parental involvement can be shaped by economic trends. A U.S. Census Bureau report found that fathers had more time to spend with their preschool-age children during the recession in 1990 and 1991. But as the economy picked up and job opportunities became more abundant, dads were less likely to provide care.

•Working parents feel stressed. While the quantity of family time in some cases increases, the quality often suffers. Unemployment leaves more jobless employees worried about money and finding work, while those in the labor force wrestle with job insecurities.

That tension spills into the home. Working women with young children are most likely to say they have little time to relax, according to a 2002 USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup poll.

"People are working under double anxiety," says Niels Nielsen, author of Princeton Management Consultants Guide to Your New Job. He founded an unemployment support group, JobSeekers, and started human resources and general management firm Princeton Management Consultants. "They're working longer hours and dealing with the prospect of being laid off. The family feels the strain. It's a double whammy."

•Relationship pressures. Job relocations, unemployment and financial concerns are testing many marriages. More than 70% of unemployed workers say family stress has increased since they lost their jobs, according to a poll by the National Employment Law Project.

Financial worries also take a toll. Calls about financial matters to counselors at ComPsych, a Chicago-based employee assistance provider, were up 58% in 2002. The majority of calls were for problems such as debt and bankruptcy instead of the typical calls they get for subjects such as money management advice.

Jim Holmes, 42, and his wife, Susan Smith, 40, were both unemployed for about two months last year. Shortly after they relocated from Los Angeles to Seattle for his wife's job, she was laid off, and he was still looking for work.

Today, Holmes is a planner with the city, and his wife is teaching and doing research at the University of Washington. While the stretch without an income gave them extra time with their children, Max, 11, and Sabrina, 6, it also was a time of worry.

"We had a good time together," says Holmes, of Issaquah, Wash. "But it was stressful at the same time. ... You'd worry about how it affects (the children's) lives."

While tensions may mount, research suggests a difficult economy actually tends to depress divorce rates. The reason: Couples have fewer financial resources, making it more cost-efficient to stay together. The divorce rate (which is shaped by numerous factors, including the economy) dipped from 4% in 2000 to 3.9% in 2002, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

"It usually takes another job for a spouse to leave," says Carl Steidtmann, chief global economist at Deloitte Research in New York. "Divorce is an expensive proposition for a lot of people, and in a down economy you wait for a better time."

New to unemployment

Many of the families affected by the economy are college-educated professionals with years of career experience. About 35% of workers unemployed for six months or longer in 2002 were over 45 years old, according to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) in Washington. About 18% of the long-term unemployed had college degrees, and 20% were executive, professional and managerial workers.

"These are people who aren't accustomed to being unemployed," says economist Jeffrey Wenger. "What kind of coping strategies do they come up with? Because you've had such a stable environment for a long time, it's possible to have family friction."

There are other spillover effects of a downturn. One-third of unemployed workers have had to interrupt their own or a family member's education, according to a recent National Employment Law Project study of laid-off workers. And one in four has moved in with a family member or into other housing.

'Where is my chance?'

Some just feel stuck. Darren Murray, 33, used to be a program director for a homeless hotline. Then he was laid off. Without enough money to support himself, Murray is living with his parents in East Windsor, N.J.

"Women are like, 'You're 33, and you live with your parents?' It's very hard to date," Murray says.

"I can't afford to move out," he laments. "It's very, very frustrating. Where is my chance to move out of my parent's house? Where is my chance to get ahead?"

Family upheavals caused by economic factors can have costly repercussions for employers. Workers with depression cost employers $44 billion a year in lost productivity, according to a June report in The Journal of the American Medical Association.

During the past year, workers were more likely to take unscheduled sick time in order to meet personal or family needs than for actual illness, according to the 2002 study by CCH, a Riverwoods, Ill.-based provider of human resources and employment law information.

For some, the changes also have an upside. Laid off in February from her job as a project manager, Sandra Benjamin suddenly became a stay-at-home mom to sons, Johnathan, 17, and Jeremy, 18. Her boys came home to meals like sautéed chicken with rice or homemade julienne potatoes.

"They've loved my being home," says Benjamin, 54, of Oakland. She recently accepted a new management job at a hospital. "We talk all the time about everything."

For those thinking about when to have children, joblessness can be a powerful factor. Lisa Doiron wanted to have a baby, but her husband, Branden, who was working in the maritime industry, lost his job shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks and hasn't been able to find steady work since. The cost of living is high in San Diego, where she works as an account manager at a public relations firm.

So after eight years in California, they're moving to Texas in July so they can afford to buy a home and begin a family. Instead of paying $1,200 a month for a 700-square-foot apartment, they'll pay less than $1,000 for a home of their own in San Antonio. There, her husband hopes it will be easier to find to job.

"We definitely wanted to wait until we get to Texas and can get a house," says Doiron, 35, of having children. "But it's been hard. I really love San Diego and my job. I don't want to give that up."