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Demography
Published in: Demography 6/2016

26-10-2016

Incarceration and Household Asset Ownership

Authors: Kristin Turney, Daniel Schneider

Published in: Demography | Issue 6/2016

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Abstract

A considerable literature documents the deleterious economic consequences of incarceration. However, little is known about the consequences of incarceration for household assets—a distinct indicator of economic well-being that may be especially valuable to the survival of low-income families—or about the spillover economic consequences of incarceration for families. In this article, we use longitudinal data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to examine how incarceration is associated with asset ownership among formerly incarcerated men and their romantic partners. Results, which pay careful attention to the social forces that select individuals into incarceration, show that incarceration is negatively associated with ownership of a bank account, vehicle, and home among men and that these consequences for asset ownership extend to the romantic partners of these men. These associations are concentrated among men who previously held assets. Results also show that post-incarceration changes in romantic relationships are an important pathway by which even short-term incarceration depletes assets.
previous article Fathers’ Imprisonment and Mothers’ Multiple-Partner Fertility
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Appendix
Available only for authorised users
Footnotes
1
Although not all mothers and fathers participate in all survey waves, the attrition levels of these data are lower than the attrition levels among cohabiting women and their partners in other representative samples (e.g., Sassler and McNally 2003).
 
2
For respondents with romantic partners, it is impossible to distinguish whether they, their partner, or both individuals own the car, truck, or van.
 
3
A relatively large number of observations are missing data on duration (18 % in the fathers’ analytic sample) and offense type (35 %). Fathers convicted for both nonviolent and violent offenses are considered violent offenders.
 
4
We use probit regression models, and all covariates from Model 2, to generate a propensity score for each observation.
 
5
It is inadvisable to compare across logistic regression models (Mood 2010). Therefore, in supplemental analyses, we used linear probability models to estimate the analyses presented in Tables 2, 3, 4, and 5 as well as Tables 6 and 7 in Appendix 1. These analyses produced coefficients that were comparable with the average marginal effects from the logistic regression models.
 
6
Interactions between incarceration and race/ethnicity show relatively little variation in the association between incarceration and asset ownership, but some evidence suggests that the relationship between paternal incarceration and bank account ownership is stronger among white fathers than among black fathers (p = .049).
 
7
Each modeling approach is applied to both men and women and to each of the three assets that we observe, potentially increasing the chance of type I error. With one exception (the association between recent paternal incarceration and fathers’ homeownership), our results hold up to both Bonferroni and Sidak corrections for multiple comparisons.
 
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Metadata
Title
Incarceration and Household Asset Ownership
Authors
Kristin Turney
Daniel Schneider
Publication date
26-10-2016
Publisher
Springer US
Published in
Demography / Issue 6/2016
Print ISSN: 0070-3370
Electronic ISSN: 1533-7790
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s13524-016-0519-1

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