Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, and Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA.
Demography. 2024 Feb 1;61(1):165-187. doi: 10.1215/00703370-11164302.
The timing and structure of fertility have important implications for individuals and society. Families play a critical role in fertility; however, little is known about how parental incarceration shapes fertility despite it being a common experience in the life course of disadvantaged children. This study examines the consequences of parental incarceration for children's fertility using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997. I employ multiple-decrement life tables and survival analyses to estimate the relationship between parental incarceration and fertility. Individuals who experience parental incarceration have different timing of fertility, with earlier first births and a quicker pace of subsequent births, as well as more nonmarital fertility, compared with those who do not experience parental incarceration. This analysis finds consistent evidence that parental incarceration is associated with the timing and structure of fertility and suggests that a parent's incarceration carries consequences over the life course of children. This study advances our understanding of how mass incarceration shapes American families, illustrates how the broader consequences of mass incarceration contribute to social inequality, and provides evidence that the enduring implications of incarceration span multiple generations.
生育的时机和结构对个人和社会都有重要影响。家庭在生育中起着关键作用；然而，尽管父母入狱是贫困儿童生活经历中常见的现象，但人们对其如何影响生育知之甚少。本研究利用 1997 年全国青年纵向调查，考察了父母入狱对儿童生育的影响。我采用多递减生命表和生存分析来估计父母入狱与生育之间的关系。与没有经历过父母入狱的人相比，经历过父母入狱的人生育的时间不同，首次生育的时间更早，随后生育的速度更快，非婚生育也更多。这一分析发现了一致的证据，表明父母入狱与生育的时机和结构有关，并表明父母入狱对孩子的一生都有影响。本研究增进了我们对大规模监禁如何塑造美国家庭的理解，说明了大规模监禁的更广泛后果如何导致社会不平等，并提供了证据表明监禁的持久影响跨越了多代人。
