Intergenerational Socioeconomic Effects of Incarceration (2014)
Undergraduate: Laura McCready
Faculty Advisor: Boone Turchi
Department: Economics
This paper explores the intergenerational socioeconomic consequences of incarceration. Through a structural equation model with latent variables, it analyzes four waves of data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to explore how paternal incarceration influences children¿s school success and early labor market outcomes. Paternal incarceration affects children¿s performance in school through decreased family earnings, reduced parental involvement, and worse mental health. It also negatively affects their school performance directly. These educational consequences play out in young adulthood through decreased chance of earning a high school degree, reduced earnings, and increased chance of unemployment. Punishment in America reverberates across generations. The findings suggest that mass incarceration may partly explain low rates of socioeconomic mobility in the United States.