Parental Work Flexibility and Adolescent Delinquent Behaviors

Research suggests that parental incarceration is one of the best predictors for delinquent behaviors in children (Geller et al., 2012). If one parent is incarcerated, then the other has to support the rest of their family. This could mean taking on unpleasant, full-time work and/or multiple jobs to meet the financial needs of the family (Han, Miller, & Waldfogel, 2010). Therefore, the working parents may not be as involved in their children’s lives at home, during and/or after school hours. This could increase the risk of children and adolescents becoming involved in delinquent behaviors. We hypothesized that while parental incarceration will increase delinquent behaviors over time, less flexible work schedules and parental incarceration at ages of three and five of the children would directly predict delinquency at age fifteen. In addition, we hypothesized that the length of incarcerated would moderate the effects of parental work flexibility on delinquency, indicating that the longer time spent in a correctional facility would negatively impact the positive effects of work flexibility on delinquency. Data from Fragile Families and Wellbeing Longitudinal Data set were used to examine both hypotheses. Results indicate that only father work flexibility at year 3, not five, and father incarceration at both year 3 and 5 predicted more serious delinquent behaviors (i.e. fighting) at year 15. The moderation hypothesis was not supported. Results and future directions will be discussed