Direct and Indirect Effects of Maternal Incarceration on Child Social-Emotional Development

• In Event: Caregiver Incarceration and Childhood Adaptation

Abstract

Background: Children of incarcerated parents represent a large and seemingly vulnerable population. However, most research in this area has focused on incarcerated fathers, and evidence related to the effects of maternal incarceration on child well-being is surprisingly mixed. Multiple studies have shown that maternal incarceration is not associated with poor child outcomes after adjusting for confounding factors such as poverty. The current study extends this literature by examining the direct and indirect pathways through which the incarceration of low-income mothers prior to a child’s birth impacts the child’s social-emotional development.

Methods: The study sample includes 914 mothers age 19 or older who participated in the Families and Children Thriving (FACT) Study, a longitudinal investigation of risk and resilience among families with young children who received home visiting services in Wisconsin. The current analysis uses two waves of survey data collected prior to the child’s 4th birthday. Participants were asked at wave 1 if they had been in prison or jail since turning age 18. Multiple mediating outcomes were also measured at wave 1. Global mental health was assessed using a subscale of the Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS-10), maternal self-efficacy and father involvement were assessed via brief scales with good internal consistency (α = .90 and .98, respectively), and parent-child reading frequency was measured by single Likert-scaled item. Approximately one year after study wave 1, participants rated their child’s social-emotional development at wave 2 using the 31-item problem scale of the Brief Infant-Toddler Social Emotional Assessment.

Following a descriptive analysis of all study variables, multivariate regressions were conducted to test direct associations with all outcomes while controlling for maternal age, race/ethnicity, education, partner cohabitation, and child age. Subsequently, a path analysis examined whether mental health and parenting indicators mediated the relationship between maternal incarceration and children’s problem behaviors.

Results: 21.2% of mothers reported a history of adult incarceration. There were significant differences in mental health scores between ever-incarcerated and never-incarcerated mothers (β = -.13; 95% CI = -.20, -.07), but no significant differences in parenting outcomes or child problem behaviors. Child problem behaviors were predicted by maternal mental health scores (OR = .96; 95% CI = .94, .97) and mother-child reading scores (OR = .85; 95% CI = .74, .96). A path analysis showed that there was no direct association between maternal incarceration and child social-emotional development, but there was evidence of an indirect path via maternal mental health (Est. = .13, p =.002).

Conclusion: In this low-income sample, we find no evidence that maternal incarceration prior to a child’s birth is directly linked to parenting outcomes or child problem behaviors. However, there was evidence of an indirect connection between incarceration and child problem scores via maternal mental health difficulties. Further research is needed to examine mechanisms such a parental separation that may explain how children are impacted by parental incarceration that occurs after a child is born. Future studies should also explore the buffering effects of home visiting and its potential as a targeted intervention strategy post-incarceration.

Authors

• Lixia Zhang, University of Northern Iowa
  Presenting Author

• Joshua Mersky, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee
  Non-Presenting Author

• ChienTi Plummer Lee, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
  Non-Presenting Author

• Meredith Head, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
  Non-Presenting Author