The Consequences of Criminal Legal Contact on Labor Turnover

• In Event: 50220 - Section on Organizations, Occupations, and Work Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 16: Unemployment, Exit, and Turnover

Abstract

Contact with the criminal legal system, such as arrest and incarceration, disproportionately affects Black and Latino communities and has been shown to limit access to high-quality jobs. This study redirects our attention to post-employment outcomes and investigates whether contact with the criminal legal system shapes voluntary and involuntary job turnover. This study will analyze job turnover dynamics using data from the 1997 to 2019 waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 dataset. The results suggest that formerly incarcerated non-Hispanic Black workers experience a lower hazard of voluntary turnover, whereas formerly incarcerated non-Hispanic White workers face a higher hazard of involuntary turnover. These findings underscore the importance of distinguishing between voluntary and involuntary job separations when assessing the consequences of criminal legal contact on labor market outcomes.

Author

• Daichi Hibi, Washington University in St. Louis