Incarceration and Fragile Families
Bruce Western, Princeton University
Leonard M. Lopoo, Syracuse University
Sara McLanahan, Princeton University
May 2004
This research was supported by grants from the National Science
Foundation and the Russell Sage Foundation
Incarceration and Family Stability
• The prison boom has made imprisonment a normal
life event for young non-college African American
men
• Low-education black couples have experienced a
large drop in marriage rates and a large increase in
non-marital birth rates
• Could incarceration be reducing the likelihood of
marriage? Is this necessarily a bad thing?
Our Empirical Analysis
• Incarceration is measured with fathers’ and
mothers’ reports in the Fragile Families Survey
• We construct a measure of father’s prior
incarceration, using mothers’ and fathers’ data
• Prior incarceration is related to measures of divorce
and cohabitation (longitudinal character of the data
attempts to adjust for unobserved heterogeneity)
• Low marriage rates among ex-offenders may not be
a bad outcome, if men are violent. We can also look
at domestic violence
Useful Features of FF for Studying the
Effects of Incarceration
• The survey asks mothers and fathers whether the
father has ever been incarcerated
• The survey also provides detailed information
about the status of the couple’s relationship, and
asks mothers if they have ever been assaulted by
their partners
• Survey data are currently available at two points in
time
Mothers’ and Fathers’ Reports of
Incarceration
Father’s Report
Mother's
Report
Noninterview
No prison
or Jail
Prison or
Jail
Total
Non-interview
0.0%
4.8%
6.0%
3.8%
No prison/jail
59.7
76.0
31.9
66.5
Prison/jail
40.3
19.2
62.1
29.7
100.0
100.0
100.0
100.0
432
1170
235
1837
Total
N
Mothers’ and Fathers’ Reports of
Incarceration
Father’s Report
Mother's
Report
Noninterview
No prison
or Jail
Prison or
Jail
Total
Non-interview
0.0%
4.8%
6.0%
3.8%
No prison/jail
59.7
76.0
31.9
66.5
Prison/jail
40.3
19.2
62.1
29.7
100.0
100.0
100.0
100.0
432
1170
235
1837
Total
N
50
40
30
Percent Incarcerated
20
10
0
Mom/Dad:
YY
YN
NY Miss.
Father is Violent
YY
YN
NY Miss.
Father is Critical
YY
YN
NY Miss.
Father is Affectionate
Some Predictors of Marriage at 1 Year
Ever Incarcerated?
No
Yes
Married at baseline
0.34
0.08
Cohabiting at baseline
0.37
0.44
HS dropout
0.27
0.42
College graduate
0.15
0.01
Will compromise
0.57
0.44
Drug or alcohol use
0.13
0.27
N
2797
1070
Incarceration Effects
Cohabitation
Marriage
Baseline
Effect
Baseline
Effect
Full Sample
.284
.079
Blacks
.258
-.055*
(.019)
-.022
-.029*
(.009)
-.020*
Whites
.206
(.024)
-.086*
(.037)
Hispanics
.328
-.085*
(.038)
.043
.145
(.008)
-.062
(.035)
.120
-.023
(.024)
Aggregate Effects of Incarceration
Observed marriage rates and predicted marriage rates at an
incarceration rate of zero, men aged 30-34, 1999
Observed
Adjusted
All white men
.58
.59
White men, non-college
.53
.55
White men, HS dropouts
.53
.56
All black men
.40
.45
Black men, non-college
.33
.40
Black men, HS dropouts
.30
.43
Implications of the Incarceration Effects
• Incarceration may have large aggregate effects on
rates of marriage and cohabitation in poor urban
communities with high incarceration rates
• Low marriage rates, although associated with social
and economic disadvantage, may reduce women’s
exposure to violence and crime
• We can also study patterns of domestic violence
with the Fragile Families data
Fathers Committing Domestic Violence (%)
16
Not Incarcerated
Drugs
Other
Violence
12
8
4
0
Bef ore Pregnancy
D uring Pregnancy
Af ter Pregnancy
6
4
2
0
Percent Reporting Domestic Violence
Coresiding
Not coresiding
During Pregnancy
After Pregnancy
Logistic Regression on Post-Pregnancy
Domestic Violence
Incarceration for Violence
Incarceration for Drugs
Incarceration for Other Offense
Cohabiting
Marriage
Affectionate
Length of Relationship
1.31
1.23
(4.17)
.98
(3.71)
.91
(2.39)
(2.14)
1.25
1.19
(5.32)
.01
(4.87)
.11
(.04)
-.78
(.48)
-.48
(1.91)
-
(1.11)
-.22
-
(1.84)
-.09
(2.65)
Conclusions
• Analysis of Fragile Families data suggests that
incarceration reduces the likelihood of marriage and
cohabitation
• Incarceration effects have a large aggregate impact on
marriage rates for non-college black couples
• Formerly-incarcerated men are more likely to be involved
in domestic violence
• BUT, there are drug offenders are less likely to be violent
than others, and these effects are offset if men are in
strong relationships