The Effects of Incarceration on Employment and Wages An Analysis of the Fragile Families Survey

We examine the effects of incarceration on the earnings and employment in a sample of poor fathers, using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study. The Fragile Families data offer a rich set of covariates for adjusting for factors that are correlated with both incarceration and earnings. Because the survey obtains data from male respondents and their female partners, we are also able to measure incarceration more completely than with self-report data alone. Regression and propensity score analysis indicates that the employment rates of formerlyincarcerated men are about 6 percentage points lower than for similar men who have not been incarcerated. Incarceration is associated with a 14 to 26 percent decline in hourly wages. We examine also provide a sensitivity analysis that shows how results might vary in the presence of omitted variables.