The impact of maternal employment on serious youth crime: Does the quality of working conditions matter

Social critics and the general public have for some time voiced a variety of concerns related to the increasing entrance of women into the paid labor market. A popular assumption has been that the children of working women are prone to criminal activity. The authors analyze data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), using multiple regression models to examine whether the occupational status of mothers has criminogenic effects on their children during adolescence and early adulthood (15- to 19-year-olds). After tracing the effects of maternal resources, work hours, and occupa-tional controls to criminality, the authors find that cumulative time spent by mothers in paid employment had no measurable influence on criminal involvement. On the other hand, coercively controlled maternal work over time was related to greater criminal involvement (in their children) in adolescence