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Parental Incarceration and Children’s Well-being: Findings from the Fragile Families and Child Well-being Study

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Handbook on Children with Incarcerated Parents

Abstract

The Fragile Families and Child Well-being Study, which follows a cohort of US children born around the turn of the twenty-first century to mostly unmarried parents in urban areas, is one data source commonly used to examine the relationship between parental incarceration and children’s well-being. In this chapter, we synthesize the existing literature that has used the Fragile Families data to understand the intergenerational consequences of parental incarceration. First, we provide an overview of these data, by documenting the sampling frame and outlining its strengths and limitations. Next, we describe key findings that have emerged from the Fragile Families data, focusing on research that examines how parental incarceration shapes children’s family environments and their well-being. Finally, we provide suggestions for future researchers interested in using the Fragile Families data to further extend our understanding of the intergenerational consequences of incarceration for families and children across the life course.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, University of California, Irvine, USA

    Kristin Turney

  2. Department of Sociology, Cornell University, Ithaca, USA

    Anna R. Haskins

Authors
  1. Kristin Turney
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  2. Anna R. Haskins
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Correspondence to Kristin Turney .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Family Translational Research Group, New York University, New York, NY, USA

    J. Mark Eddy

  2. Human Development & Family Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA

    Julie Poehlmann-Tynan

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Turney, K., Haskins, A.R. (2019). Parental Incarceration and Children’s Well-being: Findings from the Fragile Families and Child Well-being Study. In: Eddy, J., Poehlmann-Tynan, J. (eds) Handbook on Children with Incarcerated Parents. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16707-3_5

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