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.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
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).
For respondents with romantic partners, it is impossible to distinguish whether they, their partner, or both individuals own the car, truck, or van.
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.
We use probit regression models, and all covariates from Model 2, to generate a propensity score for each observation.
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.
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).
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.
References
Addo, F., & Sassler, S. (2010). Financial arrangements and relationship quality in low-income couples. Family Relations, 59, 408–423.
Apel, R., & Sweeten, G. (2010). The impact of incarceration on employment during the transition to adulthood. Social Problems, 57, 448–479.
Avellar, S., & Smock, P. J. (2005). The economic consequences of the dissolution of cohabiting unions. Journal of Marriage and Family, 67, 315–327.
Barker, D. (2013). The evidence does not show that homeownership benefits children. Cityscape, 15, 231–234.
Barr, M. (2004). Banking the poor. Yale Journal on Regulation, 21, 121–237.
Barr, M., & Blank, R. (2009). Savings, assets, credit, and banking among low-income households: Introduction and overview. In M. Barr & R. Blank (Eds.), Insufficient funds: Savings, assets, credit, and banking among low-income households (pp. 1–22). New York, NY: Russell Sage.
Baum, C. (2009). The effects of vehicle ownership on employment. Journal of Urban Economics, 66, 151–163.
Beckett, K., Harris, A., & Evans, H. (2008). The assessment and consequences of legal financial obligations in Washington state. Olympia: The Washington State Minority and Justice Commission.
Blank, R. (2010). Middle class in America. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Commerce, Economics and Statistics Administration.
Brayne, S. (2014). Surveillance and system avoidance: Criminal justice contact and institutional attachment. American Sociological Review, 79, 367–391.
Campbell, D., Martinez-Jerez, A., & Tufano, P. (2012). Bouncing out of the banking system: An empirical analysis of involuntary bank account closures. Journal of Banking & Finance, 36, 1224–1235.
Caskey, J. (2005). Reaching out to the unbanked. In M. Sherraden (Ed.), Inclusion in the American dream: Assets, poverty, and public policy (pp. 149–166). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Comfort, M. (2008). Doing time together: Love and family in the shadow of the prison. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Conley, D. (1999). Being black, living in the red. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Cubbin, C., Pollack, C., Flaherty, B., Hayward, M., Sania, A., Vallone, D., & Braveman, P. (2011). Assessing alternative measures of wealth in health research. American Journal of Public Health, 101, 939–947.
Dickman, S. J. (1990). Functional and dysfunctional impulsivity: Personality and cognitive correlates. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58, 95–102.
Edin, K., & Kefalas, M. (2005). Promises I can keep: Why poor women put motherhood before marriage. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Ergungor, O. E. (2010). Bank branch presence and access to credit in low- to moderate-income neighborhoods. Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, 42, 1321–1349.
Geller, A., Cooper, C. E., Garfinkel, I., Schwartz-Soicher, O., & Mincy, R. B. (2012). Beyond absenteeism: Father incarceration and its effects on children’s development. Demography, 49, 49–76.
Geller, A., Garfinkel, I., & Western, B. (2011). Paternal incarceration and support for children in fragile families. Demography, 48, 25–47.
Goffman, A. (2009). On the run: Wanted men in a Philadelphia ghetto. American Sociological Review, 74, 339–357.
Graves, S. M. (2003). Landscapes of predation, landscapes of neglect: A location analysis of payday lenders and banks. Professional Geographer, 55, 303–317.
Grinstead, O., Faigeles, B., Bancroft, C., & Zack, B. (2001). The financial cost of maintaining relationships with incarcerated African American men: A survey of women prison visitors. Journal of African American Studies, 6(1), 59–69.
Groves, R. M. (2004). Survey errors and survey costs. New York, NY: Wiley.
Grusky, D. B., Smeeding, T. M., & Snipp, C. M. (2015). A new infrastructure for monitoring social mobility in the United States. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 657, 63–82.
Hagan, J. (1993). The social embeddedness of crime and unemployment. Criminology, 31, 465–491.
Harding, D. J., Morenoff, J., & Herbert, C. (2013). Home is hard to find: Neighborhoods, institutions, and the residential trajectories of returning prisoners. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 647, 214–236.
Harding, D. J., Wyse, J. J. B., Dobson, C., & Morenoff, J. D. (2014). Making ends meet after prison. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 33, 440–470.
Harris, A., Evans, H., & Beckett, K. (2010). Drawing blood from stones: Legal debt and social inequality in the contemporary United States. American Journal of Sociology, 115, 1753–1799.
Hogarth, J., Angeulov, C., & Lee, J. (2005). Who has a bank account? Exploring change over time, 1989–2011. Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 26, 7–30.
Kaeble, D., Glaze, L., Tsoutis, A., & Minton, T. (2015). Correctional populations in the United States, 2014. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice.
Keister, L. A., & Moller, S. (2000). Wealth inequality in the United States. Annual Review of Sociology, 26, 63–81.
Kuebler, M. (2013). Closing the wealth gap: A review of racial and ethnic inequalities in homeownership. Sociology Compass, 7, 670–685.
LaLonde, R. J. (1986). Evaluating the econometric evaluations of training programs with experimental data. American Economic Review, 76, 604–620.
Lerman, R., & McKernan, S.-M. (2008). Benefits and consequences of holding assets. In S.-M. McKernan & M. Sherraden (Eds.), Asset building and low-income families (pp. 175–206). Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press.
Lyons, C. J., & Pettit, B. (2011). Compounded disadvantage: Race, incarceration, and wage growth. Social Problems, 58, 257–280.
Maroto, M. L. (2014). The absorbing status of incarceration and its relationship with wealth accumulation. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 31, 207–236.
Massoglia, M., Firebaugh, G., & Warner, C. (2013). Racial variation in the effect of incarceration on neighborhood attainment. American Sociological Review, 78, 142–165.
McKernan, M.-S., Ratcliffe, C., & Vinopal, K. (2009). Do assets help families cope with adverse events? (Perspectives on Low-Income Working Families, Brief No. 10). Washington, DC: Urban Institute.
McKernan, M.-S., Ratcliffe, C., & Williams Shanks, T. (2012). Is poverty incompatible with asset accumulation? In P. N. Jefferson (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of the economics of poverty (pp. 463–493). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Minton, T. D. (2012). Jail inmates at midyear 2011—Statistical tables. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice.
Mood, C. (2010). Logistic regression: Why we cannot do what we think we can do, and what we can do about it. European Sociological Review, 26, 67–82.
Mumola, C. J. (2000). Incarcerated parents and their children (Bureau of Justice Statistics special report). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice.
Oliver, M. L., & Shapiro, T. M. (2006). Black wealth, white wealth: A new perspective on racial inequality. New York, NY: Routledge.
Orr, A. J. (2003). Black-white differences in achievement: The importance of wealth. Sociology of Education, 76, 281–304.
Pager, D. (2003). The mark of a criminal record. American Journal of Sociology, 108, 937–975.
Paternoster, R., Brame, R., Mazerolle, P., & Piquero, A. (1998). Using the correct statistical test for the equality of regression coefficients. Criminology, 36, 859–866.
Pearson, J. (2004). Building debt while doing time: Child support and incarceration. Judges’ Journal, 43(1), 5–12.
Pettit, B., & Western, B. (2004). Mass imprisonment and the life course: Race and class inequality in U.S. incarceration. American Sociological Review, 69, 151–169.
Sassler, S., & McNally, J. (2003). Cohabiting couples’ economic circumstances and union transitions: A re-examination using multiple imputation techniques. Social Science Research, 32, 553–578.
Schneider, D. (2011). Wealth and the marital divide. American Journal of Sociology, 117, 627–667.
Schneider, D., & Turney, K. (2015). Incarceration and black-white inequality in homeownership: A state-level analysis. Social Science Research, 53, 403–414.
Schwartz-Soicher, O., Geller, A., & Garfinkel, I. (2011). The effect of paternal incarceration on material hardship. Social Service Review, 85, 447–473.
Sherraden, M. (1991). Assets and the poor: A new American welfare policy. New York, NY: ME Sharpe Publishers Inc.
Sherraden, M. (2009). Individual development accounts and asset-building policy: Lessons and directions. In R. M. Blank & M. S. Barr (Eds.), Insufficient funds: Savings, assets, credit, and banking among low-income households (pp. 191–217). New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.
Smock, P., Manning, W., & Gupta, S. (1999). The effect of marriage and divorce on women’s economic well-being. American Sociological Review, 64, 794–812.
Spilerman, S. (2000). Wealth and stratification processes. Annual Review of Sociology, 26, 497–524.
Travis, J., Cincotta McBride, E., & Solomon, A. L. (2005). Families left behind: The hidden costs of incarceration and reentry. Washington, DC: Justice Policy Center.
Turney, K. (2015a). Hopelessly devoted? Relationship quality during and after incarceration. Journal of Marriage and Family, 77, 480–495.
Turney, K. (2015b). Liminal men: Incarceration and relationship dissolution. Social Problems, 62, 499–528.
Turney, K., & Wildeman, C. (2013). Redefining relationships: Explaining the countervailing consequences of paternal incarceration for parenting. American Sociological Review, 78, 949–979.
Wakefield, S., & Uggen, C. (2010). Incarceration and stratification. Annual Review of Sociology, 36, 387–406.
Washington, E. (2006). The impact of banking and fringe banking regulation on the number of unbanked Americans. Journal of Human Resources, 41, 106–137.
Western, B. (2006). Punishment and inequality in America. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.
Wildeman, C., Turney, K., & Yi, Y. (2016). Paternal incarceration and family functioning: Variation across federal, state, and local facilities. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 665, 80–97.
Wildeman, C., & Western, B. (2010). Incarceration in fragile families. Future of Children, 20(2), 157–177.
Zatz, N. (2008). Working at the boundaries of markets: Prison labor and the economic dimension of employment relations. Vanderbilt Law Review, 61, 857–958.
Acknowledgments
Funding for the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study was provided by the NICHD through Grants R01HD36916, R01HD39135, and R01HD40421, as well as a consortium of private foundations (see http://www.fragilefamilies.princeton.edu/funders.asp for the complete list). Schneider acknowledges support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Scholars in Health Policy Research Program. We are grateful to Amanda Geller, Jessica Hardie, Loic Wacquant, Anita Zuberi, and participants at the Bay Area Colloquium in Population (BACPOP) for helpful feedback.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Appendices
Appendix 1
Our main findings show that incarceration is robustly associated with asset ownership among both recently incarcerated men and the women with whom they share children.
First, in Table 6, we consider the potentially differential consequences of incarceration duration for fathers’ and mothers’ assets, with duration measured as a series of mutually exclusive dummy variables: less than three months (5 % in the fathers’ analytic sample), three months or longer (7 %), duration missing (3 %), and not recently incarcerated (85 %). Here, if both shorter and longer incarceration spells are similarly associated with asset ownership, these findings would provide some evidence against threats to causal inference because we expect unmeasured characteristics to be correlated with incarceration duration. We find that incarceration lasting less than three months, compared with incarceration lasting three months or longer, is similarly consequential for fathers’ vehicle ownership and homeownership: the coefficients are not statistically different from each other (in the equivalent of Model 2 of Table 2, p = .507 for vehicle ownership and p = .369 for homeownership). Some evidence suggests that incarceration lasting three months or longer is more negatively associated with fathers’ bank account ownership than incarceration lasting less than three months (p = .001). With respect to mothers’ assets, we find no statistically significant differences between fathers’ shorter and longer incarcerations (p = .712 for bank account ownership, p = .965 for vehicle ownership, and p = .948 for homeownership). Furthermore, if we instead use thresholds of six months or one year, we find no statistically significant differences by incarceration duration. Taken together, these findings provide further evidence against threats to causal inference.
Second, in Table 7, we consider the potentially differential consequences of offense type, also measured as a series of mutually exclusive dummy variables: violent offense (3 % in the fathers’ analytic sample), nonviolent offense (6 %), offense type missing (5 %), and no recent paternal incarceration (85 %). These findings would provide some evidence against threats to causal inference if both types of offenses are similarly associated with asset ownership because we expect unmeasured characteristics to be correlated with offense type. Across all models and outcomes, we find no evidence that incarceration for violent and nonviolent offenses are differentially associated with fathers’ assets (p = .692, .235, and .375 for bank account, vehicle, and homeownership, respectively, in the equivalent of Model 2 of Table 2) or mothers’ assets (p = .201, .634, and .921, respectively). Again, these lacking differential associations provide some evidence against threats to causal inference.
Appendix 2
In the main analyses, we assess how recent paternal incarceration—incarceration between the three- and five-year surveys—depletes assets in the relatively short term (by the five-year survey). But the consequences of paternal incarceration for asset loss may play out after the five-year survey. We consider this in supplemental analyses (results discussed but not shown in tables) that gauge how recent paternal incarceration is associated with asset loss at the nine-year survey. In logistic regression models limited to those with assets at the three-year survey (the equivalent of Model 1 in Table 4), we find that paternal incarceration is associated with car ownership (b = −0.85, p < .01) and bank account ownership (b = −0.74, p < .05) among fathers. We also find that paternal incarceration is associated with homeownership (b = −1.74, p < .01) and bank account ownership (b = 0.41, p < .10) among mothers. The paternal incarceration coefficients estimating mothers’ ownership of a home and bank account at the nine-year survey are larger in magnitude than the coefficients estimating mothers’ home and bank ownership at the five-year survey, suggesting that the estimates presented are conservative and that the deleterious effects of incarceration continue to play out over the ensuing years.
Furthermore, the preceding supplemental analyses do not consider paternal incarceration that occurs between the five- and nine-year surveys. In a second set of supplemental models (results discussed but not shown in tables), we estimate how paternal incarceration over a longer time span—between the three- and nine-year surveys—is associated with asset loss at the nine-year survey. These results are also consistent with the findings presented in Table 4. Among those who previously held such assets, paternal incarceration between the three- and nine-year surveys is associated with a decreased likelihood of bank account ownership (b = −0.60, p < .05) and car ownership (b = −1.00, p < .001) among fathers and a decreased likelihood of car ownership (b = −0.43, p < .05) and homeownership (b = −1.64, p < .01) among mothers.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Turney, K., Schneider, D. Incarceration and Household Asset Ownership. Demography 53, 2075–2103 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13524-016-0519-1
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13524-016-0519-1