The most recent issue of Prison Journal contains an article by RSF grantee Robert LaLonde (University of Chicago) and Haeil Jung (Korea University) that explores formerly incarcerated mothers’ reentry into the labor force. LaLonde and Jung compare the earnings and employment rates of these mothers to those of childless women who have also been formerly incarcerated. The authors also explore whether mothers’ labor market outcomes are affected by whether they have had children in foster care either during or prior to incarceration.
The abstract states:
This study investigates how motherhood and foster care records of their children influence women's transitions into the labor market after incarceration. Our fixed effects models examine the relative progress of incarcerated mothers in earnings and employment after incarceration, accounting for the difference between mothers and women without children and controlling for time-constant individual characteristics. Our analysis indicates that incarcerated mothers make impressive progress in quarterly employment during the second and third year after incarceration. Most of these increases are from mothers whose children started, but did not resolve, foster care before incarceration.
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