Social Exclusion and Parental Incarceration Impacts on Adolescents' Networks and School Engagement

Although prior research links parental incarceration to deleterious outcomes for children during the life course, few studies have examined whether such incarceration affects the social exclusion of children during adolescence. Drawing on several lines of scholarship, the authors examined whether adolescents with incarcerated parents have fewer or lower quality relationships, participate in more antisocial peer networks, and feel less integrated or engaged in school. The study applies propensity score matching to survey and network data from a national sample of youth. Analyses indicated that children with incarcerated parents have more antisocial peers; the authors found limited evidence that parental incarceration adversely impacts peer networks and school integration domains. The results suggest that the impacts of parental incarceration on adolescents' social lives have less to do with isolation than with the types of peers adolescents befriend. Findings provide support for the idea that parental incarceration may adversely affect children's social exclusion.     

Understanding Unique Effects of Parental Incarceration on Children: Challenges,Progress, and Recommendations

Growth in U.S. incarceration rates during the 1980s and 1990s prompted a body of research focused on understanding the diverse effects of incarceration on individuals, families, and communities. An area of particular interest has been how the incarceration of a parent may affect child well‐being. Despite what appears to be converging evidence that parental incarceration poses a significant threat to child development, this area of inquiry has yet to overcome important methodological and conceptual challenges related to selection bias. It is therefore unclear whether the difficulties that have been observed among children whose parents are incarcerated are due to the incarceration itself or to other adversities that children have experienced. The purpose of this article is to draw attention to these issues, to summarize empirical and conceptual progress in overcoming these challenges, and to suggest directions for future research.     

Parental incarceration and child outcomes: Those at risk,evidence of impacts,methodological insights,and areas of future work

The past 15 years of sociological scholarship assessing the intergenerational consequences of parental incarceration has produced a large body of work suggesting, on the aggregate, detrimental impacts on behavioral, educational, and health outcomes for American children. In this review, we briefly outline who is most at risk for experiencing parental incarceration, before providing an overview of recent multidisciplinary research on the impacts of parental incarceration for American children, ages 0–17. While our review centers on research within the discipline of sociology, we also highlight the interdisciplinary nature and methodological range of work in this subfield in order to provide a more holistic picture of the breadth and variation in impacts of this uniquely American phenomenon. Finally, we conclude with a discussion of the gaps in current literature and areas ripe for further development. In particular, we note future sociological work aimed at exploring mechanisms, addressing heterogeneity in effects, and highlighting pathways for resilience in children of the incarcerated is much needed in order to further develop our understanding of the broader intergenerational consequences of America's experiment in mass incarceration.     

Adolescent Sexuality and the Risk of Marital Dissolution

This research investigates whether first sexual intercourse during adolescence is associated with increased risk of first marriage dissolution and tests whether the results are consistent with causal or selection explanations. Drawing on a sample of 3,793 ever‐married women from the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth, this study estimated event‐history models of first‐marriage dissolution. Results indicate that wanted sexual debut in later adolescence does not directly increase the risk of marital dissolution but is linked indirectly as a result of subsequent premarital sexual outcomes. Sexual debut that is not completely wanted or that occurs before age 16 is associated with increased risk of marital dissolution. The results suggest that the timing and context of adolescent sexual debut have important implications for marital stability.     

Women's Marriage Behavior Following a Premarital Birth in Sub‐Saharan Africa

This study examines the relationship between premarital childbearing and the timing of women's entry into their first marriage in sub‐Saharan Africa. The study shows that African women who have a premarital birth generally experience later transitions to marriage than do their childless peers. Although the birth of a child precipitates a quicker transition to marriage initially, unmarried mothers, on average, marry at older ages than their childless peers and remain single for between 2 and 14 years. Evidence from a subsample of countries confirms that the time between having a child and first marriage has lengthened slightly in some countries; however, this reflects mainly the overall trend toward later marriage, rather than a further bifurcation of the marital trajectories of mothers versus childless women. The study raises policy concerns about the welfare of Africa's single mothers and their children.     

Trauma Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy with Children of Incarcerated Parents

This paper explores children’s trauma symptoms related to parental incarceration and lays the groundwork for the implementation of Trauma Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) within a clinical community-based setting treating children and adolescents affected by parental incarceration. Children and adolescents who experience parental incarceration are more likely to develop symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD): depression, anger, aggression, and isolating and self-harming behaviors. Although parental incarceration is a known source of trauma, there are no documented studies examining effective clinical treatments to reduce the effects of the trauma experienced by these children and adolescents. Except for children and adolescents affected by parental incarceration, TF-CBT, a promising model for treating and reducing the symptoms of PTSD, has been successfully applied to various populations affected by trauma. Children of incarcerated parents resemble populations treated with TF-CBT in earlier applications. In this paper, we present a case illustration that examines the application of TF-CBT with one child who experienced trauma symptoms related to parental incarceration, while discussing the results of that application and the potential for broader applicability of TF-CBT within community-based organizations that treat the population of children and families affected by parental incarceration.     

Paternal Incarceration and Children’s Social-Emotional Functioning at Age Nine: Why Fathers’ Violence Matters

Research documents the consequences of parental incarceration for children’s well-being, and studies have begun to explore heterogeneity in parental incarceration’s influence on child outcomes. This study investigates the effect of paternal incarceration on children’s social competence. Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a longitudinal study of new parents in urban areas, I examine (1) the effect of recent paternal incarceration on multiple measures of children’s social-emotional functioning, including children’s social competence, and (2) whether fathers’ violence against mothers and children weakens the effect of recent paternal incarceration on children’s social-emotional functioning. The results from propensity score and multivariate regression analyses show that recent paternal incarceration is detrimental to children’s social-emotional functioning, in general. However, for some indicators of children’s social-emotional functioning, the effects of recent paternal incarceration depend on whether fathers are abusive.     

Developmental Patterns in Marital Satisfaction: Another Look at Covenant Marriage

This study investigated differences in the trajectory of marital satisfaction in the first 7 years between couples in covenant versus standard marriages. The authors analyzed data on 707 Louisiana marriages from the Marriage Matters Panel Survey of Newlywed Couples, 1998–2004, using multivariate longitudinal growth modeling. When the sample was restricted to couples who remained married over the duration of the study, a marginal benefit of covenant status was found for husbands. This effect was largely accounted for by covenant husbands' more extensive exposure to premarital counseling. The linear decline in marital satisfaction over time that obtained for both husbands and wives was not, however, any different for covenant marriages versus standard marriages. Couples characterized by more traditional attitudes toward gender roles were significantly less satisfied than others. High premarital risk factors, initial uncertainty about marrying the spouse, and the presence of preschool‐age children in the household were all corrosive of marital satisfaction at any given time.     

Trajectories of Sexual Risk From Middle Adolescence to Early Adulthood

Developmental trajectories of risky sexual behavior were identified in a multiethnic sample of 1,121 youth drawn from the Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth data set (NLSY79). Group-based trajectory modeling of a composite index of sexual risk taking revealed four sexual risk groups from ages 16 to 22: low risk, decreasing risk, increasing risk, and high risk. The Low Risk group exhibited low levels of risk across the study period. The Decreasing Risk group had high levels of sexual risk in adolescence that declined in early adulthood. The Increasing Risk and High Risk groups showed distinct risk patterns during adolescence but converged in early adulthood. When compared with adolescents in the low-risk group, individuals in the other groups were more likely to be male, had mothers who had an early birth, were less likely to live with both biological parents in early adolescence, had higher risk proneness, and reported more negative peer pressure.     

Nonmarital Childbearing, Union History, and Women's Health at Midlife

Despite high rates of nonmarital childbearing in the U.S., little is known about the health of women who have nonmarital births. We use data from the NLSY79 to examine differences in age 40 self-assessed health between women who had a premarital birth and those whose first birth occurred within marriage. We then differentiate women with a premarital first birth according to their subsequent union histories and estimate the effect of marrying or cohabiting versus remaining never-married on midlife self-assessed health, paying particular attention to the paternity status of the mother's partner and the stability of marital unions. To partially address selection bias, we employ multivariate propensity score techniques. Results suggest that premarital childbearing is negatively associated with midlife health for white and black (but not Hispanic) women. We find no evidence that these negative health consequences of nonmarital childbearing are mitigated by either marriage or cohabitation for black women. For other women, only enduring marriage to the biological father is associated with better health than remaining unpartnered.     

Women,children and marriage in Swaziland

While sociologists have long theorized that marriage is an almost universal institution developed to create stable units for the rearing of children, data from interviews with 100 rural and 25 urban women in Swaziland in 1988-89 reveal that these assumptions reflect narrow ethnocentric views rather than the relationship between marriage and children which exists in Swaziland where there is a prevailing pattern of early childbearing and later marriage. Whereas half of all Swazi mothers aged 20-30 are unmarried, this proportion drops to a third by age 40 and to a fifth by age 50. It is popular to state that the reason that marriage is not a prerequisite for child-bearing is that a deterioration of morals has accompanied the erosion of traditional morals. However, a careful reading of early essays reveals that the practice is of long standing. In fact, not only is this a normal pattern in Swazi society, there are well understood rules for allocating the responsibility of children outside of marriage which are being strained by the spread of industrial capitalism. The customs which accompany premarital child-bearing include the father paying a compensation (5 cattle) to the mother's family for the birth, the father having the right to "buy" the child, and the traditional right of the king to forbid marriage to warriors. This system of premarital conception has resulted in a very high birthrate and has been fostered by the homestead system with its kinship networks and shared resources. A growing ambivalence to children can be seen in the fact that the marriage rituals which give a husband the right to his wife's sexuality rather than those which involve the paying of a price for the rights to the children are the most commonly performed. In addition, the old image of the natural father proudly asserting his rights to his children is rarely seen in modern Swaziland. The mother's family, from which the child can be claimed at any time up until puberty, tries to avoid investing heavily in a resource (the child) which may be snatched away. The fact that most mothers now assign the father's name to their children indicates their willingness to have the child appropriated. In the meantime, the women are expected to be the sole providers for their children.     

Premarital Cohabitation,Husbands' Commitment,and Wives' Satisfaction with the Division of Household Contributions

Abstract

Recent research suggests that cohabiting men with plans to marry do more housework than those without plans to marry. Building on mis finding and drawing from commitment theory, we asked whether premarital cohabitation history and husbands' commitment were associated with satisfaction with the division of household contributions in marriage (N = 171 couples). There were no significant effects of cohabitation history (i.e., whether the couple started cohabiting before planning marriage versus after planning or not until marriage) on satisfaction with the division of household contributions during the early years of marriage. However, husbands' dedication was associated with wives' levels of satisfaction with the division of household contributions, even after controlling for marital adjustment and wives' own dedication. The practical implications of these links between men's commitment and women's satisfaction with the division of household contributions are discussed.     

Father Absence and Youth Incarceration

This study measured the likelihood of youth incarceration among adolescent males from father‐absent households, using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (N=34,031 person‐years). At baseline, the adolescents ranged from 14 to 17 years, and the incarceration outcome measure spanned ages 15 to 30 years. This study tested whether risk factors concentrated in father‐absent households explained the apparent effects of father absence. Results from longitudinal event‐history analysis showed that although a sizable portion of the risk that appeared to be due to father absence could actually be attributed to other factors, such as teen motherhood, low parent education, racial inequalities, and poverty, adolescents in father‐absent households still faced elevated incarceration risks. The adolescents who faced the highest incarceration risks, however, were those in stepparent families, including father–stepmother families. Coresidential grandparents may help attenuate this risk, although remarriage and residential instability increased it. Social policies to support children should broaden beyond an emphasis on marriage to address the risks faced by adolescents living in stepfamilies as well.     

Locating non‐Western enlightenment texts for a global curriculum

The context of this paper is a university‐based teacher education course in Melbourne, Australia. The assumption underpinning the course is that it is crucial for trainee teachers to examine the lenses they typically use in terms of common‐sense understandings of children and adolescents. We point to the 18th century Western enlightenment period as the source of this thinking. I argue that it is important to be aware of other enlightenments that have shaped the traditions of students in our multicultural mix. In this paper, I explore the writings of the Mahabharata and other early Indian texts to see how they have also influenced ways of thinking about childhood and adolescence. Data for this paper have been drawn from course materials, student responses, translations of early Indian texts and popular stories depicting childhood and adolescence.     

Remarried Couples in Premarital Education: Does the Content Match Participant Needs?

Although premarital education has been found to reduce risk factors of divorce, the use of premarital education has primarily been examined in first marriages, or in groups combining both first and later marriages. In this qualitative study, 8 remarried couples’ perceptions of the premarital education they received were explored. The coexisting core categories of the desire to create a loving relationship yet fear of repeated marital failure emerged. The results implied that remarried couples carried an additional fear of marital dissolution, which in conjunction with the complex tasks associated with stepfamily formation, promoted attachment insecurities. Clinical applications are included.     

The Prevalence and Correlates of Multipartnered Fertility Among Urban U.S. Parents

Recent trends in marriage and fertility have increased the number of adults having children by more than 1 partner, a phenomenon that we refer to as multipartnered fertility. This article uses data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to examine the prevalence and correlates of multipartnered fertility among urban parents of a recent birth cohort (N = 4,300). We find that unmarried parents are much more likely to have had a child by a previous partner than married parents. Also, race/ethnicity is strongly associated with multipartnered fertility, as is mothers’ young age at first birth, and fathers’ history of incarceration. To the extent that childrearing across households diminishes parental resources, multipartnered fertility has important consequences for children’s well‐being.     

Maltreatment history as persistent risk: An extension of Li and Godinet (2014)

Using individual growth curves with mixed models, this study examined the influence of maltreatment on the trajectories of both internalizing and externalizing behavioral problems from early childhood (age 4) to late adolescence/emerging adulthood (age 16) in the LONGSCAN samples of children with early maltreatment exposure or early risk for maltreatment. Maltreatment reports for each child were used to create a time-varying predictor, which was assessed on an ongoing basis in the LONGSCAN study. Child/youth emotional and behavioral problems were measured at ages 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, and 16 using the Child Behavior Checklist. Maltreatment allegations significantly predicted subsequent trajectories of both internalizing and externalizing problems. For both types of problems, the effect of repeated maltreatment was on the rate of change (the trajectory), and in the case of externalizing problems, this effect grew more pronounced through age 16. Although behavioral problems may not be seen in younger children who experience maltreatment, these children are at ongoing risk for such problems as they grow older, and this risk is either maintained through adolescence (in the case of internalizing problems) or increases in strength through adolescence (in the case of externalizing problems). Maltreatment history is a persistent risk factor for child outcomes through adolescence. Assessment for recent maltreatment, as well as for earlier history of maltreatment, in adolescent children would improve treatment and service plans for children with behavioral and emotional problems through adolescence.     

The impact of childhood stressful life events on health and behavior in at-risk youth

Stressful life events experienced in childhood affect heath throughout the lifespan. Given the high prevalence of stressful life events, especially for children at-risk for child welfare involvement, the impacts of these events across different developmental stages need to be better understood. The current study examines the relation between previously experienced stressful life events and psychosocial health and risk behaviors in adolescence. Several links between maltreatment and psychosocial health were found. Namely, youth who had experienced sexual abuse were more likely to report anxious arousal symptoms, youth who had experienced physical maltreatment and emotional maltreatment were more likely to drop out of school, and youth who had experienced neglect were more likely to dropout, have unprotected sex and use cigarettes. Latent class analysis of life events revealed three groups of children with certain patterns of life events: Chronic, Moderate/Declining, and Low Life Events. After accounting for gender, race, and exposure to maltreatment, members of the Chronic Life Events group uniquely and significantly predicted higher likelihood of Anger/Irritability, Depression, Intrusive Experiences, and Dissociation on the Trauma Symptom Inventory at age 18. Additionally, members of the Chronic Life Events group were significantly more likely to drop out of school, have more sexual partners, be arrested more often and use marijuana or other illicit drugs more often. Membership in the Moderate/Declining Life Events group was significantly associated with likelihood of dropping out of school. The amount of stressful life events appears to be strong predictors of psychosocial outcomes and risk behaviors in adolescence. Efforts to intervene and prevent childhood exposure to stressful life events—particularly in children at-risk and/or maltreated—should begin early in life and continue throughout childhood and adolescence.     

Health in household context: living arrangements and health in late middle age

People living in some arrangements show better health than persons in other living arrangements. Recent prospective studies document higher mortality among persons living in particular types of households. We extend this research by examining the influence of household structure on health using longitudinal data. We theorize that individuals experience role-based household relations as sets of resources and demands. In certain household structures, individuals are more likely to perceive that the demands made on them outweigh the resources available to them. This perceived imbalance poses a risk to individual health. We test our expectations by analyzing the relationship between living arrangements and health using data from waves 1 and 2 of the Health and Retirement Study. We focus on persons ages 51-61 and explore gender differences. We find prospective links between household structure and self-rated health, mobility limitation, and depressive symptoms. Married couples living alone or with children only are the most advantaged; single women living with children appear disadvantaged on all health outcomes. Men and women in other household types are disadvantaged on some health outcomes. Our results suggest that the social context formed by the household may be important to the social etiology of health. In addition, they qualify the well-known link between marital status and health: The effect of marital status on health depends on household context.