Parental Incarceration, Own Incarceration, and Neighborhood Attainments in Adolescence and Adulthood

• In Event: 441 - Section on Inequality, Poverty, and Mobility. Social Exclusion

Abstract

This paper examines racial and ethnic differences in the relationship between mother’s and father’s parental incarceration and their children’s neighborhood attainments in adulthood, using data from waves I and IV of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health. Moreover, it considers the degree to which these relationships are mediated by neighborhood experiences in adolescence as well as youth’s own incarcerations as juveniles and young adults. For the sample as a whole, it is found that mother’s incarceration more strongly predicts neighborhood attainments than does father’s incarceration, and that this relationship is partly mediated by own incarcerations and other adult transitions. Moreover, there are strong race differences observed, with mother’s incarceration most consequential for black youth (father’s incarceration is not significant), nor mediated by other factors. Father’s incarcerations are most significant for Hispanic youth, and to a lesser extent white youth. With respect to youth’s own incarcerations, black youth incarcerated as both juveniles and young adults have significantly higher levels of neighborhood poverty in adulthood.

Authors

• Raymond R. Swisher, Bowling Green State University

• Kyla Marie Campbell, Bowling Green State University