Beyond Early Years Versus Adolescence: The Interactive Effect of Adversity in Both Periods on Life-Course Development

Abstract

Developmental scholars, parents, and policymakers alike have long heralded the opening years of life as disproportionately influential. Recent work on adolescence has revealed, however, greater influence ofthese later years—but without considering how experience during these two periods interact. Weaddress this issue by studying adverse experiences (e.g., parental divorce, incarceration) measured atages 0–5 years and 13–18 years on problematic development at 18–19 years (e.g., criminal behavior,disconnection from school and work) on 363,444 Danish siblings. Given multiple possible interactionpatterns, no predictions were advanced. The extent to which adverse experiences in early childhoodimpact future problematic development depends on level of adversity experienced in adolescence: Onlywhen exposure to adversity in adolescence was limited did greater early life adversity predict poorerfuture outcomes. Otherwise, adolescent adversity swamped effects of early life adversity. Results arediscussed in terms of the design and context of the research