No causal relationship between early motherhood and offspring adolescent offending: Empirical evidence from a...

Previous studies have consistently shown that young maternal age at birth is associated with an increased risk for problematic behavior in offspring. Less is known about the mechanisms underlying this association, as it could either reflect a causal effect or a spurious relationship. This study aims to gain more insights in these underlying mechanisms by studying the relationship between early motherhood and offspring adolescent offending. The sample includes all individuals who were born in the Netherlands between 1991 and 2001 (N=2,098,815). All variables were extracted from register data of Statistics Netherlands, including police registrations to measure adolescent offending. Logistic regression analyses were used to examine the relationship between maternal age at birth and offspring adolescent offending, with and without control variables. Moreover, a children of discordant siblings model was applied to further control for unmeasured familial confounders (i.e., shared environmental and genetic confounders). In line with previous studies, the results show a significant negative relationship between early motherhood and offspring offending. However, no significant effect was found in the children of discordant siblings analysis, which suggests that this relationship is confounded by unmeasured familial factors. These results illustrate the importance of applying genetically informed research designs when studying intergenerational relationships.