The Impact of Incarceration on Wage Mobility and Inequality

By Bruce Western. American Sociological Review, 2002

737 citations recorded by the source corpus.

A life course perspective on crime indicates that incarceration can disrupt key life transitions. Life course analysis of occupations finds that earnings mobility depends on stable employment in career jobs. These two lines of research thus suggest that incarceration reduces ex-inmates’ access to the steady jobs that usually produce earnings growth among young men. Consistent with this argument, evidence for slow wage growth among ex-inmates is provided by analysis of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Because incarceration is so prevalent—one-quarter of black non-college males in the survey were interviewed between 1979 and 1998 while in prison or jail—the effect of imprisonment on individual wages also increases aggregate race and ethnic wage inequality.

Subfields: Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/0222663ea0b776b49d3c7c2d241e3330c42d7835

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Sociology and Political Science

Citations in the corpus

Segmented assimilation on the ground: The new second generation in early adulthood (2005, background): “These results can be compared with those reported by Western (2002) for the population of the United States.”
In School and Out of Trouble? The Minimum Dropout Age and Juvenile Crime (2014, background): “Table 1 illustrates there has been a strong movement toward increasing the minimum dropout age in recent years.4 Not surprisingly, the legislation is more complex than simply specifying a minimum dropout age.”
Incarceration Length, Employment, and Earnings (2006, background): “19 Although the returns to experience appear to be substantial for low-skilled workers in general (Tricia Gladden and Christopher Taber, 2002), wage growth for individuals after incarceration spells appears to be especially low (Western, 2002).”
What Percentage of Americans Have Ever Had a Family Member Incarcerated?: Evidence from the Family History of Incarceration Survey (FamHIS) (2019, background): “prospects (e.g., Pager 2003; Western 2002), and interferes with their family relationships (e.”
Criminal records and college admissions: A modified experimental audit (2018, background): “Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2017), which could help counterbalance the negative effects of criminal justice involvement on employment, earnings, and mobility (Western, 2002).”
The Effect of Incarceration on Re-Offending: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Pennsylvania (2013, background): “…support the theory that legal sanctions downgrade conventional attainment (Freeman, 1996; Nagin and Waldfogel, 1995, 1998; Sampson and Laub, 1993; Waldfogel, 1994; Western, 2002; Western, Kling & Weiman, 2001) and increase future offending (Bernburg and Krohn, 2003; Hagan and Palloni, 1990).”
Parental Incarceration, Child Homelessness, and the Invisible Consequences of Mass Imprisonment (2014, background): “Incarceration draws in men with poor job prospects, prevents them from contributing funds to family members during their incarceration, and diminishes employability upon release (e.g., Pager 2003; Western 2002, 2006).”
Black‐White Wage Inequality, Employment Rates, and Incarceration1 (2005, background): “…wages were incarcerated for two years or less, so the time between age at admission and curent age is short.2 Moreoever, wages grew slowly for criminal offenders and those with little schooling in the 1980s and 1990s (Western 2002), reducing the chance that the inmate wage data are out of date.”
Doing time after time: an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of reformed ex-prisoners' experiences of self-change, identity and career opportunities (2010, background): “Considering this shift in sense of self, what is not clear is how or if the widespread stigma attached to the ex-offender cohort (Pager & Quillian, 2005; Rasmusen, 1996; Waldfogel, 1994; Western, 2002) impacts on their daily lives and what are the implications, if any, for their sense of self ?”