Incarceration and Financial Support in Fragile Families

Background and Purpose:

Incarceration is widespread in the United States, a phenomenon with implications for families as well as individuals. In 2002, over 1.1 million parents (mostly fathers) with over 2.4 million minor children were incarcerated in State and Federal prisons or local jails. Research has shown significant negative effects on employment, earnings, and relationship stability, suggesting that children face considerable risk when their parents are incarcerated. This paper examines one mechanism by which children may be affected by parental incarceration: the financial support that fathers provide to their partners and children.

Methods:

We examine the incarceration/contribution relationship using the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study, a population-based longitudinal survey of nearly 5,000 urban families with children born between 1998 and 2000, oversampling unmarried parents. By the fifth-year survey, nearly half of fathers have been incarcerated.

We compute financial contributions based on men's earnings and child support payments, and use a number of methods to determine how they are affected by incarceration. In addition to Ordinary Least Squares regression, we use a propensity score model comparing men with incarceration histories to men who have never been incarcerated, but closely resemble those who have. Finally, we assess the causal nature of the incarceration/contribution relationship by using state-level incarceration rates as an instrument for an individual's likelihood of having been incarcerated.

Results:

Men with incarceration histories are shown to perform worse in the labor market, and to be in less stable relationships, than men who have never been incarcerated. They are 40% more likely to be unemployed around their child's fifth birthday, and even men released from prison several years earlier earn almost 40% less in the year of their interview. As expected, they contribute significantly less to their families.

Isolating the causal effect of incarceration, we find the magnitude of this relationship to decrease slightly. Nonetheless, we find a significant and persistent negative effect.

Conclusions and Implications:

The decreased magnitude of the incarceration "effect" in the causal models suggests that there are unobserved qualities of incarcerated men that also predict relationship instability and poor labor market performance. However, even after controlling for these characteristics, a significant negative effect of incarceration remains.

The causal link between incarceration and diminished family support suggests that the drastic increase in the incarcerated population over the last 30 years places an overwhelming number of children at economic risk. These risks may be mitigated by restoring a rehabilitative component to correctional facilities, enabling men to develop or maintain their human capital. Enabling family visitation may also help to strengthen marital and co-parenting relationships, to improve family stability upon the father's release. Finally, when evaluating incarceration as a policy response to crime, it is crucial that the public safety benefits are weighed against the negative consequences for incarcerated men, their children, and families.