Search Results

Author: Western, Bruce
Resulting in 14 citations.
1. Lopoo, Leonard M.
Western, Bruce
Incarceration and the Formation and Stability of Marital Unions
Journal of Marriage and Family 67,3 (August 2005): 721-734.
Also: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2005.00165.x/abstract
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Council on Family Relations
Keyword(s): Black Studies; Divorce; Educational Attainment; Event History; Incarceration/Jail; Marriage; Racial Differences; Racial Studies

Rising imprisonment rates and declining marriage rates among low-education African Americans motivate an analysis of the effects of incarceration on marriage. An event history analysis of 2,041 unmarried men from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 suggests that men are unlikely to marry in the years they serve in prison. A separate analysis of 2,762 married men shows that incarceration during marriage significantly increases the risk of divorce or separation. We simulate aggregate marriage rates using estimates from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and find that the prevalence of marriage would change little if incarceration rates were reduced.
Bibliography Citation
Lopoo, Leonard M. and Bruce Western. "Incarceration and the Formation and Stability of Marital Unions." Journal of Marriage and Family 67,3 (August 2005): 721-734.
2. Lynch, Scott M.
Western, Bruce
Bayesian Posterior Predictive Checks for Complex Models
Sociological Methods and Research 32,3 (February 2004): 301-335.
Also: http://smr.sagepub.com/content/32/3/301.abstract
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Sage Publications
Keyword(s): Bayesian; Modeling, Fixed Effects; Modeling, Mixed Effects; Modeling, Multilevel; Modeling, Probit; Modeling, Random Effects

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

In sociological research, it is often difficult to compare nonnested models and to evaluate the fit of models in which outcome variables are not normally distributed. In this article, the authors demonstrate the utility of Bayesian posterior predictive distributions specif-ically, as well as a Bayesian approach to modeling more generally, in tackling these issues. First, they review the Bayesian approach to statistics and computation. Second, they discuss the evaluation of model fit in a bivariate probit model. Third, they discuss comparing fixed- and random-effects hierarchical linear models. Both examples high-light the use of Bayesian posterior predictive distributions beyond these particular cases. Copyright: 2004 Sage Publications
Bibliography Citation
Lynch, Scott M. and Bruce Western. "Bayesian Posterior Predictive Checks for Complex Models." Sociological Methods and Research 32,3 (February 2004): 301-335.
3. Pettit, Becky
Western, Bruce
Mass Imprisonment and the Life Course: Race and Class Inequality in U.S. Incarceration
American Sociological Review 69 (2004):151-69.
Also: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3593082
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: American Sociological Association
Keyword(s): Census of Population; Earnings; Educational Attainment; High School Completion/Graduates; Incarceration/Jail; Life Course; Racial Differences

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Although growth in the U.S. prison population over the past twenty-five years has been widely discussed, few studies examine changes in inequality in imprisonment. We study penal inequality by estimating lifetime risks of imprisonment for black and white men at different levels of education. Combining administrative, survey, and census data, we estimate that among men born between 1965 and 1969, 3 percent of whites and 20 percent of blacks had served time in prison by their early thirties. The risks of incarceration are highly stratified by education. Among black men born during this period, 30 percent of those without college education and nearly 60 percent of high school dropouts went to prison by 1999. The novel pervasiveness of imprisonment indicates the emergence of incarceration as a new stage in the life course of young low-skill black men.

The National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) was used to estimate the proportion of inmates who go on [to] graduate from high school or attend college in each subsequent age interval.

Bibliography Citation
Pettit, Becky and Bruce Western. "Mass Imprisonment and the Life Course: Race and Class Inequality in U.S. Incarceration." American Sociological Review 69 (2004):151-69.
4. Western, Bruce
Incarceration, Marriage, and Family Life
Working Paper, Russell Sage Foundation, September 2004.
Also: http://www.russellsage.org/publications/workingpapers/incarcerationmarriagefamilylife/document
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
Keyword(s): Crime; Divorce; Domestic Violence; Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study; Incarceration/Jail; Marriage

This paper examines the effects of incarceration on marriage and family life. The paper reports on three empirical analyses. First, estimates show that incarcerated men are only about half as likely to be married as noninstituional men of the same age, however they are just as likely to have children. By 2000, more than 2 million children had incarcerated fathers; 1 in 10 black children under age 10 had a father in prison or jail by 2000. Analysis of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 and the Fragile families Study of Child Wellbeing, indicates that formerly incarcerated men experience lower marriage rates and increased risks of divorce. Finally, analysis of domestic violence data shows that formerly-incarcerated men are about twice as likely to have assaulted the mothers of their children than men of the same age, race, and recent history of spouse abuse. Married women in longlasting and affectionate relationships are at lower risk of domestic violence. These results suggest that the crime-suppressing effects of incarceration, through incapacitation, may be offset by the negative effects of imprisonment on marriage.
Bibliography Citation
Western, Bruce. "Incarceration, Marriage, and Family Life." Working Paper, Russell Sage Foundation, September 2004.
5. Western, Bruce
Locked Up, Locked Out: The Social Costs of Incarceration
Reason 43,3 (1 July 2011): 40-41.
Also: http://reason.com/archives/2011/06/06/locked-up-locked-out
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Reason Foundation
Keyword(s): Employment; Incarceration/Jail; Punishment, Criminal; Racial Equality/Inequality; Wages

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

The article discusses social implications of incarceration in the U.S. According to a survey, a criminal record reduced employment opportunities by two-thirds for African Americans. Labor force data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth reports that wages fall by about 15 percent after prison, yearly earnings are reduced by about 40 percent, and the pay of former prisoners.
Bibliography Citation
Western, Bruce. "Locked Up, Locked Out: The Social Costs of Incarceration." Reason 43,3 (1 July 2011): 40-41.
6. Western, Bruce
Mass Imprisonment and Economic Inequality
Social Research 74,2 (Summer 2007): 509-532
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: New School for Social Research
Keyword(s): Age and Ageing; Black Studies; Black Youth; Educational Attainment; Gender Differences; Incarceration/Jail; Life Course; Racial Differences

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

The article addresses the inequalities in U.S. incarceration rates by age, race and gender. The author shows how imprisonment has become a routine event in the life course for young African American men with less than a high school education. By positioning incarceration rates alongside group- and cohort-specific rates of other life events, the Western world contextualized the scope and social concentration of punishment in the country. The author believes that economic opportunities are reduced by incarceration. Data are from the NLSY79.
Bibliography Citation
Western, Bruce. "Mass Imprisonment and Economic Inequality." Social Research 74,2 (Summer 2007): 509-532.
7. Western, Bruce
Punishment and Inequality in America
Industrial and Labor Relations Review 60,4 (2007): Article 87.
Also: http://www.jstor.org/stable/view/25249115
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University
Keyword(s): Crime; Incarceration/Jail; Minorities; Minorities, Youth; Minority Groups; Punishment, Criminal; Racial Equality/Inequality

If you are a black unemployed high school dropout, are convicted of a crime, and spend a few months in jail, you will have a high probability of remaining unemployed, untrained, and undereducated and of returning to jail more than once over your lifetime. As a result of various punitive laws enacted over the past two generations, declining support for rehabilitation efforts, and the advent of technologies making it easier to track individuals, prison has become a way of life for many in the United States. It is too often a revolving door of crime, prison, release, lack of employment, crime, and return to prison. But (a) does incarceration cause unemployment, or does unemployment cause criminal behavior and subsequent imprisonment? And (b) what are the economic costs and benefits of increased U.S. imprisonment?
Bibliography Citation
Western, Bruce. "Punishment and Inequality in America." Industrial and Labor Relations Review 60,4 (2007): Article 87.
8. Western, Bruce
The Impact of Incarceration on Earnings Mobility and Inequality
Working Paper, Russel Sage Foundation, December 2000
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
Keyword(s): Crime; Incarceration/Jail; Mobility

Bibliography Citation
Western, Bruce. "The Impact of Incarceration on Earnings Mobility and Inequality." Working Paper, Russel Sage Foundation, December 2000.
9. Western, Bruce
The Impact of Incarceration on Wage Mobility and Inequality
American Sociological Review 67,4 (August 2002): 526-546.
Also: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3088944
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: American Sociological Association
Keyword(s): Black Youth; Crime; Earnings; Ethnic Differences; Incarceration/Jail; Job Tenure; Life Course; Racial Differences; Wage Growth; Wages; Wages, Young Men

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

A life course perspective on crime indicates that incarceration can disrupt key life transitions. Life course analysis of occupations finds that earnings mobility depends on stable employment in career jobs. These two lines of research thus suggest that incarceration reduces ex-inmates' access to the steady jobs that usually produce earnings growth among young men. Consistent with this argument, evidence for slow wage growth among ex-inmates is provided by analysis of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Because incarceration is so prevalent, one-quarter of black non-college males in the survey were interviewed between 1979 and 1998 while in prison or jail, the effect of imprisonment on individual wages also increases aggregate race and ethnic wage inequality.
Bibliography Citation
Western, Bruce. "The Impact of Incarceration on Wage Mobility and Inequality." American Sociological Review 67,4 (August 2002): 526-546.
10. Western, Bruce
Beckett, Katherine
How Unregulated is the U.S. Labor Market? The Penal System as a Labor Market Institution
American Journal of Sociology 104,4 (January 1999): 1030-1060.
Also: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/210135
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Keyword(s): Incarceration/Jail; Labor Market Outcomes; Unemployment Rate

Comparative research contrasts the corporatist welfare states of Europe with the unregulated U.S. labor market to explain low rates of U.S. unemployment in the 1980s and 1990s. In contrast, this article argues that the U.S. state made a large and coercive intervention into the labor market through the expansion of the penal system. The impact of incarceration on unemployment has two conflicting dynamics. In the short run, U.S. incarceration lowers conventional unemployment measures by removing able-bodied, working-age men from labor force counts. In the long run, social survey data show that incarceration raises unemployment by reducing the job prospects of ex-convicts. Strong U.S. employment performance in the 1980s and 1990s has thus depended in part on a high and increasing incarceration rate.
Bibliography Citation
Western, Bruce and Katherine Beckett. "How Unregulated is the U.S. Labor Market? The Penal System as a Labor Market Institution." American Journal of Sociology 104,4 (January 1999): 1030-1060.
11. Western, Bruce
Bloome, Deirdre
Cohort Change and Racial Differences in Intergenerational Education and Income Mobility
Presented: Dallas, TX, Population Association of America Meetings, April 2010
Cohort(s): NLSY79, Young Men
Publisher: Population Association of America
Keyword(s): Education; Income; Intergenerational Patterns/Transmission; Male Sample; Mobility; Mobility, Economic; Parental Influences; Racial Differences

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

This study examines trends in intergenerational education and income mobility across two recent cohorts in the U.S. Income inequality rose substantially between the early 1980s and the mid 1990s, in part due to rising returns to schooling, and yet few studies have examined changes in the mobility of young adults across these two periods. Perhaps more significantly, African Americans reaching maturity in these two periods faced very different opportunity structures while growing up. This paper studies whether changes in the social and economic organization of American society differentially affected the mobility of black and white men. Using nationally representative data from two cohorts of children and their parents from the National Longitudinal Surveys, this paper finds a significant liberalization of educational mobility for African Americans, while both white and black men's incomes became somewhat more dependent on their parents' incomes.
Bibliography Citation
Western, Bruce and Deirdre Bloome. "Cohort Change and Racial Differences in Intergenerational Education and Income Mobility." Presented: Dallas, TX, Population Association of America Meetings, April 2010.
12. Western, Bruce
Bloome, Deirdre
Variance Function Regressions for Studying Inequality
Sociological Methodology 39,1 (August 2009): 293-326.
Also: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9531.2009.01222.x/abstract
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: American Sociological Association
Keyword(s): Earnings; Incarceration/Jail; Methods/Methodology; Modeling; Risk-Taking; Variables, Independent - Covariate; Variables, Instrumental

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Regression-based studies of inequality model only between-group differences, yet often these differences are far exceeded by residual inequality. Residual inequality is usually attributed to measurement error or the influence of unobserved characteristics. We present a model, called variance function regression, that includes covariates for both the mean and variance of a dependent variable. In this model, the residual variance is treated as a target for analysis. In analyses of inequality, the residual variance might be interpreted as measuring risk or insecurity. Variance function regressions are illustrated in an analysis of panel data on earnings among released prisoners in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. We extend the model to a decomposition analysis, relating the change in inequality to compositional changes in the population and changes in coefficients for the mean and variance. The decomposition is applied to the trend in U.S. earnings inequality among male workers, 1970 to 2005.
Bibliography Citation
Western, Bruce and Deirdre Bloome. "Variance Function Regressions for Studying Inequality." Sociological Methodology 39,1 (August 2009): 293-326.
13. Western, Bruce
Lopoo, Leonard M.
Pettit, Becky
Punishment and Inequality in America
New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation, 2007
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
Keyword(s): Incarceration/Jail; Minorities; Minority Groups; Punishment, Criminal; Racial Equality/Inequality

The recent explosion of imprisonment is exacting heavy costs on American society and exacerbating inequality. Whereas college or the military were once the formative institutions in young menʼs lives, prison has increasingly usurped that role in many communities. Punishment and Inequality in America profiles how the growth in incarceration came about and the toll it is taking on the social and economic fabric of many American communities.

See in particular Chapter 6: Incarceration, Marriage, and Family Life"

See review of monograph: http://www.bsos.umd.edu/gvpt/lpbr/subpages/reviews/western1006.htm

Bibliography Citation
Western, Bruce, Leonard M. Lopoo and Becky Pettit. Punishment and Inequality in America. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation, 2007.
14. Western, Bruce
Pettit, Becky
Incarceration and Social Inequality
Daedalus 139,3 (Summer 2010): 8-19.
Also: http://www.amacad.org/publications/daedalus/10_summer_western.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: MIT Press
Keyword(s): Economic Well-Being; Economics of Discrimination; Economics of Minorities; Economics, Demographic; Educational Attainment; Incarceration/Jail; Intergenerational Patterns/Transmission; Mobility, Economic; Racial Differences; Social Environment

In the last few decades, the institutional contours of American social inequality have been transformed by the rapid growth in the prison and jail population.1 America's prisons and jails have produced a new social group, a group of social outcasts who are joined by the shared experience of incarceration, crime, poverty, racial minority, and low education. As an outcast group, the men and women in our penal institutions have little access to the social mobility available to the mainstream. Social and economic disadvantage, crystallizing in penal confinement, is sustained over the life course and transmitted from one generation to the next. This is a profound institutionalized inequality that has renewed race and class disadvantage. Yet the scale and empirical details tell a story that is largely unknown. Though the rate of incarceration is historically high, perhaps the most important social fact is the inequality in penal confinement. This inequality produces extraordinary rates of incarceration among young African American men with no more than a high school education. For these young men, born since the mid-1970s, serving time in prison has become a normal life event. The influence of the penal system on social and economic disadvantage can be seen in the economic and family lives of the formerly incarcerated. The social inequality produced by mass incarceration is sizable and enduring for three main reasons: it is invisible, it is cumulative, and it is intergenerational. The inequality is invisible in the sense that institutionalized populations commonly lie outside our official accounts of economic well-being. Prisoners, though drawn from the lowest rungs in society, appear in no measures of poverty or unemployment. As a result, the full extent of the disadvantage of groups with high incarceration rates is underestimated. The inequality is cumulative because the social and economic penalties that flow from incarceration are accrued by those who already have the weakest economic opportunities. Mass incarceration thus deepens disadvantage and forecloses mobility for the most marginal in society. Finally, carceral inequalities are intergenerational, affecting not just those who go to prison and jail but their families and children, too.
Bibliography Citation
Western, Bruce and Becky Pettit. "Incarceration and Social Inequality." Daedalus 139,3 (Summer 2010): 8-19.