Purpose

Research shows that parental incarceration can produce adverse effects across the life course. One question that remains largely unaddressed, however, is whether these effects are age-graded. Drawing on developmental and life-course scholarship, we argue that parental incarceration will exert different effects depending upon the developmental stage that it is first experienced.

Methods

This study employs regression techniques using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (N = 11,670). Specifically, we examine whether the effects of parental incarceration are greater if it is experienced during the early childhood (i.e., before age 6). The outcomes examined include adult offending, marijuana use, depression, educational attainment, and earnings.

Results

The results revealed an apparent age-graded effect of parental incarceration during adulthood. However, post hoc tests indicated that the apparent differences are only statistically significant for criminal offending, lending only limited support for an age-graded effect of parental incarceration.

Conclusions

Although experiencing parental incarceration during childhood may not exert an age-graded effect on adult outcomes, the results lend support to theoretical arguments that parental incarceration may serve as an event that is especially salient—or a “turning point”—in the lives of children.

中文翻译：

---

监禁和生活历程：第一次父母监禁经历的年龄分级效应

目的

研究表明，父母的监禁会在整个生命过程中产生不利影响。但是，仍然没有解决的一个问题是这些影响是否按年龄分级。利用发展和生命历程的奖学金，我们认为父母监禁将根据初次经历的发展阶段而发挥不同的作用。

方法

这项研究采用了从青少年到成人健康国家纵向研究中获得的数据（N  = 11,670）的回归技术。具体而言，我们研究了如果在幼儿期（即6岁之前）经历过父母关押的影响是否更大。检查的结果包括成人犯罪，使用大麻，抑郁，教育程度和收入。

结果

结果表明，成年期间父母监禁的年龄明显影响。但是，事后检验表明，表面上的差异仅在刑事犯罪方面具有统计学意义，仅对父母监禁的按年龄分级的影响提供了有限的支持。

结论

尽管在童年时期经历父母监禁可能不会对成人结局产生年龄影响，但这些结果为理论上的论点提供了支持，即父母监禁可能是儿童生活中特别重要的事件或“转折点” 。