McCarthy Bill, Benoit Cecilia, Jansson Mikael
Department of Sociology, University of California Davis, One Shields Ave., Davis, CA, 95616, USA,
Arch Sex Behav. 2014 Oct;43(7):1379-90. doi: 10.1007/s10508-014-0281-7. Epub 2014 Mar 27.
Explanations of adult involvement in sex work typically adopt one of two approaches. One perspective highlights a variety of negative experiences in childhood and adolescence, including physical and sexual abuse, family instability, poverty, associations with "pimps" and other exploiters, homelessness, and drug use. An alternative account recognizes that some of these factors may be involved, but underscores the contribution of more immediate circumstances, such as current economic needs, human capital, and employment opportunities. Prior research offers a limited assessment of these contrasting claims: most studies have focused exclusively on people working in the sex industry and they have not assessed the independent effects of life course variables central to these two perspectives. We add to this literature with an analysis that drew on insights from life course and life-span development theories and considered the contributions of factors from childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Our comparative approach examined predictors of employment in sex work relative to two other low-income service or care work occupations: food and beverage serving and barbering and hairstyling. Using data from a study of almost 600 workers from two cities, one in Canada and the other in the United States, we found that both immediate circumstances and negative experiences from early life are related to current sex work involvement: childhood poverty, abuse, and family instability were independently associated with adult sex work, as were limited education and employment experience, adult drug use, and marital status.
关于成年人涉足性工作的解释通常采用两种方法之一。一种观点强调童年和青少年时期的各种负面经历，包括身体和性虐待、家庭不稳定、贫困、与“皮条客”及其他剥削者的关联、无家可归和吸毒。另一种解释承认这些因素可能有一定作用，但强调更直接的环境因素的影响，如当前的经济需求、人力资本和就业机会。先前的研究对这些相互矛盾的观点评估有限：大多数研究仅聚焦于性产业从业者，且未评估这两种观点核心的生命历程变量的独立影响。我们通过一项分析为该文献增添内容，该分析借鉴了生命历程和毕生发展理论的见解，并考虑了童年、青少年和成年期因素的作用。我们的比较方法考察了相对于其他两种低收入服务或护理工作职业（餐饮服务以及理发和造型）而言，涉足性工作的预测因素。利用来自加拿大和美国两个城市近600名工人的研究数据，我们发现早期生活中的直接环境因素和负面经历都与当前涉足性工作有关：童年贫困、虐待和家庭不稳定与成年后的性工作独立相关，有限的教育和就业经历、成年吸毒以及婚姻状况也与之相关。
