Search Results

Author: Hodges, Melissa J.
Resulting in 16 citations.
1. Budig, Michelle Jean
Hodges, Melissa J.
Differences in Disadvantage: Variation in the Motherhood Penalty across White Women’s Earnings Distribution
American Sociological Review 75,5 (October 2010): 705-728.
Also: http://asr.sagepub.com/content/75/5/705.abstract
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: American Sociological Association
Keyword(s): Earnings; Maternal Employment; Motherhood; Wage Differentials; Wage Penalty/Career Penalty; Wages, Women

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

Earnings inequality has grown in recent decades in the United States, yet research investigating the motherhood wage penalty has not fully considered how the penalty itself, and the mechanisms producing it, may vary among low-wage, middle-wage, and high-wage workers. Pooling data from the 1979 to 2004 waves of the NLSY and using simultaneous quantile regression methods with fixed effects, we test whether the size of the motherhood penalty differs across the distribution of white women’s earnings, and whether the mechanisms explaining this penalty vary by earnings level. Results show that having children inflicts the largest penalty on low-wage women, proportionately, although a significant motherhood penalty persists at all earnings levels. We also find that the mechanisms creating the motherhood penalty vary by earnings level. Family resources, work effort, and compensating differentials account for a greater portion of the penalty among low earners. Among highly paid women, by contrast, the motherhood penalty is significantly smaller and largely explained by lost human capital due to childbearing. Our findings show that estimates of average motherhood penalties obscure the compounded disadvantage mothers face at the bottom of the earnings distribution, as well as differences in the type and strength of mechanisms that produce the penalty.
Bibliography Citation
Budig, Michelle Jean and Melissa J. Hodges. "Differences in Disadvantage: Variation in the Motherhood Penalty across White Women’s Earnings Distribution." American Sociological Review 75,5 (October 2010): 705-728.
2. Budig, Michelle Jean
Hodges, Melissa J.
Overqualified and Underpaid: Understanding the Mechanisms Producing the Earnings Penalty for Care Workers
Presented: Denver CO, American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, August 2012
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: American Sociological Association
Keyword(s): Human Capital; Job Characteristics; Occupational Choice; Occupations; Wage Penalty/Career Penalty

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

The care wage penalty is well established, but less is known about the mechanisms producing it. Commonly used arguments of these mechanisms have not been systematically adjudicated empirically. We examine the differences between care and non-care workers that may produce this penalty, including differences in selection into care work on stable individual characteristics (such as tastes, preferences, and unmeasured abilities), human capital, job amenities and disamenities, occupational and industrial segregation, and participation in the public sector and worker unions. We also consider how specific types of care workers, such as doctors, teachers, and childcare workers, experience different penalties for performing care work. Importantly, we go beyond simply considering how differences in worker and job characteristics may lead to the care penalty. The care penalty may be produced if the wage returns to human capital, or the wage protection effects of worker unions and government subsidized work, are less positive, or more negative, for care workers. We investigate this by testing whether returns (i.e., coefficients) are different between care and non-care workers in regard to human capital (education, experience, and seniority) and potentially protective job characteristics (working in the public sector and membership in a collective bargaining unit). In these analyses we again divide care workers into subgroups of workers to consider which care workers face greater wage penalties and whether human capital investments and protective job characteristics benefit some care workers more than others.
Bibliography Citation
Budig, Michelle Jean and Melissa J. Hodges. "Overqualified and Underpaid: Understanding the Mechanisms Producing the Earnings Penalty for Care Workers." Presented: Denver CO, American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, August 2012.
3. Budig, Michelle Jean
Hodges, Melissa J.
England, Paula A.
Wages of Nurturant and Reproductive Care Workers: Individual and Job Characteristics, Occupational Closure, and Wage-Equalizing Institutions
Social Problems 66,2 (May 2019): 294-319.
Also: https://academic.oup.com/socpro/article/66/2/294/4976108
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Keyword(s): Job Characteristics; Modeling, Fixed Effects; Occupations; Wage Gap; Wage Penalty/Career Penalty

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

Despite the work's social importance, nurturant and reproductive care workers earn less than others with comparable human capital and work demands. We explore three broad questions related to pay for care work. First, we examine nurturant and reproductive care penalties together to investigate what mechanisms produce the lower wages for these workers. Second, we examine how occupational closure through education credentials and licensing requirements creates varying returns to care work. Finally, we explore the roles of wage equalizing institutions--labor unions and government sector care provision--in reducing wage disparities associated with care work. Using the 1979-2012 waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) and fixed-effects regression models, we find that selection on stable factors and human capital differences explain much of the lower wages for reproductive workers, but none of the low wages of nurturant workers. However, compared to non-care workers, college-educated nurturant care workers receive lower returns to work experience, suggesting limitations in how much learning can increase efficiency in care work, given the labor intensive, face-to-face nature of much of it. Occupational closure matters: care jobs with the highest educational and licensing requirements pay a wage bonus, while less closed care occupations incur a penalty. Wage equalizing institutions have both floor and ceiling effects on care worker wages that mitigate care penalties for selected workers: women reproductive workers and women in low-education/high-licensing occupations. More consistently, ceiling effects of these institutions lower the wages of otherwise higher paid care workers: nurturant and high-education/high licensing occupations.
Bibliography Citation
Budig, Michelle Jean, Melissa J. Hodges and Paula A. England. "Wages of Nurturant and Reproductive Care Workers: Individual and Job Characteristics, Occupational Closure, and Wage-Equalizing Institutions." Social Problems 66,2 (May 2019): 294-319.
4. Budig, Michelle Jean
Lim, Misun
Hodges, Melissa J.
Racial and Gender Disparities in the Wage Returns for Educational Attainment
Presented: Philadelphia PA, American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, August 2018
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: American Sociological Association
Keyword(s): Earnings; Educational Attainment; Gender Differences; Racial Differences

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

How do race and gender intersect with educational attainment to influence earnings? Do women and minority men earn less than white men because of lower educational attainment or degrees in less lucrative majors, or because they receive lower returns to the same qualifications? Using a longitudinal national probability sample, we test whether earnings returns to education differ among white men, black men, white women, and black women. To examine the role of racial and gender segregation in field of degree, we consider multiple specifications of education: years of education, highest degree obtained, and level-by-field of degree obtained. Covariates include local labor market and demographic characteristics, family structure, human capital, and job characteristics. Findings reveal a robust labor market for less educated white men, such that white men's greater returns to secondary and college educational attainment only emerges with controls for human capital, labor supply, and job characteristics. White women also receive stronger wage returns for educational credentials, but only for post-graduate degrees. Black men receive significantly lower returns for most of their educational credentials, and this can be attributed to the disadvantageous sorting of educated black men into jobs with low-paying characteristics. Finally, black women, who appear to receive stronger returns for educational attainment in baseline models, are uniformly undervalued for their educational attainment in more saturated models. This indicates that that educational attainment may propel black women's success in the labor market in terms of human capital accumulation and occupational attainment, but compared to white women and men with equivalent characteristics, black women's education is strikingly under-rewarded in terms of pay.
Bibliography Citation
Budig, Michelle Jean, Misun Lim and Melissa J. Hodges. "Racial and Gender Disparities in the Wage Returns for Educational Attainment." Presented: Philadelphia PA, American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, August 2018.
5. Budig, Michelle Jean
Lim, Misun
Hodges, Melissa J.
Racial and Gender Pay Disparities: The Role of Education
Social Science Research published online (16 May 2021): 102580.
Also: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0049089X21000570
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Elsevier
Keyword(s): College Major/Field of Study/Courses; Educational Attainment; Educational Returns; Gender Differences; Racial Equality/Inequality; Wage Gap

We investigate whether white women, black women, and black men earn less than white men because of 1) lower educational attainment and/or 2) lower wage returns to the same levels and academic fields of attainment. Using the 1979-2012 waves of the American National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79), we examine how educational attainment and academic fields of study impact pay. Regression decompositions show that differences in attainment and in academic fields explain 13 to 23 percent of the racial pay gaps, but none of the gender pay gaps. Random effects models test for race and gender differences in the wage returns to education. Men of both races receive higher wage returns relative to women, while black women receive lower returns relative to all groups for master's degrees. Our intersectional approach reveals that equalizing educational attainment would reduce racial pay gaps, whereas equalizing wage returns to education would reduce gender pay disparities. Moreover, black women's earnings are multiply disadvantaged, both by their lower attainment relative to white women, and their lower returns to education relative to all groups studied.
Bibliography Citation
Budig, Michelle Jean, Misun Lim and Melissa J. Hodges. "Racial and Gender Pay Disparities: The Role of Education." Social Science Research published online (16 May 2021): 102580.
6. Budig, Michelle Jean
Lim, Misun
Hodges, Melissa J.
Fugiero, Melissa
It’s Not Enough to Stay in School: Race and Gender Differences in the Wage Returns of Educational Attainment
Presented: New Orleans LA, Population Association of America Annual Meeting, April 2013
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Population Association of America
Keyword(s): Educational Attainment; Gender Differences; Racial Differences; Wage Differentials; Wages

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

Using the 1979-2010 waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), we test whether African-Americans and Caucasians experience different returns to earnings for educational attainment. We examine multiple specifications of education: years of education, highest degree obtained, and field of degree obtained. Control variables include human capital, job characteristics, family structure, and demographic characteristics. We find African-Americans receive lower returns to education measured as highest grade completed, net of extensive control variables. Most of this racial difference in returns is concentrated among workers with graduate degrees, particularly among PhDs. Among men, whites receive significantly higher returns for MBAs and PhDs in the social sciences and humanities. Among women, whites receive significantly higher returns for graduate degrees in humanities and legal studies. Some of these racial differences are due to differential placement in occupations and industries after degree completion.
Bibliography Citation
Budig, Michelle Jean, Misun Lim, Melissa J. Hodges and Melissa Fugiero. "It’s Not Enough to Stay in School: Race and Gender Differences in the Wage Returns of Educational Attainment." Presented: New Orleans LA, Population Association of America Annual Meeting, April 2013.
7. England, Paula A.
Bearak, Jonathan M.
Budig, Michelle Jean
Hodges, Melissa J.
Do Highly Paid, Highly Skilled Women Experience the Largest Motherhood Penalty?
American Sociological Review 81,6 (December 2016): 1161-1189.
Also: http://asr.sagepub.com/content/81/6/1161.abstract
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: American Sociological Association
Keyword(s): Motherhood; Wage Levels; Wage Penalty/Career Penalty; Wages, Women

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

Motherhood reduces women's wages. But does the size of this penalty differ between more and less advantaged women? To answer this, we use unconditional quantile regression models with person-fixed effects, and panel data from the 1979 to 2010 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79). We find that among white women, the most privileged--women with high skills and high wages--experience the highest total penalties, estimated to include effects mediated through lost experience. Although highly skilled, highly paid women have fairly continuous experience, their high returns to experience make even the small amounts of time some of them take out of employment for childrearing costly. By contrast, penalties net of experience, which may represent employer discrimination or effects of motherhood on job performance, are not distinctive for highly skilled women with high wages.
Bibliography Citation
England, Paula A., Jonathan M. Bearak, Michelle Jean Budig and Melissa J. Hodges. "Do Highly Paid, Highly Skilled Women Experience the Largest Motherhood Penalty?" American Sociological Review 81,6 (December 2016): 1161-1189.
8. England, Paula A.
Bearak, Jonathan M.
Budig, Michelle Jean
Hodges, Melissa J.
Is the Motherhood Wage Penalty Worse at the Top or Bottom?
Presented: San Francisco CA, Population Association of America Meetings, May 2012
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Population Association of America
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Maternal Employment; Modeling, Fixed Effects; Motherhood; Racial Differences; Wage Differentials; Wage Penalty/Career Penalty; Wages, Women

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

In this paper, we ask whether motherhood wage penalties are higher for women at the top or bottom of skill, wage, and race hierarchies. Two recent papers that address the issue of how the penalties vary by skill and wage present a puzzle. In an unpublished but widely cited NBER paper, Wilde, Batchelder, and Ellwood (2010), using the AFQT cognitive skill test as a measure of skill, find the motherhood penalty to be much higher for higher skilled women before and after controls for experience. This makes sense if we think that the jobs that high-skilled women can get are the hardest to combine with the demands of motherhood without performance being affected. Budig and Hodges (2010), using the same (National Longitudinal Analysis of Youth 1979) dataset, and deploying quantile regression, show that the penalty for motherhood (as a proportion of wage) is much larger for low wage women. Part of this is simply that low wage women drop out the most, and thus, when they re-enter, pay a penalty for their lost experience. But even after adjustments for experience, Budig and Hodges found lower wage women to have them to have higher penalties, possibly reflecting the less family-friendly firms they work for, and/or their low bargaining power on matters of flexibility. Because individuals’ skills and their wages are moderately positively correlated, it is a puzzle that low skill women have lower penalties while low wage women have higher penalties. Research has also examined whether black and white women differ in their motherhood penalties with mixed findings (e.g. Budig and England 2001 find no difference while Waldfogel 1997 finds lower penalties for black women). We examine whether the wage penalty for motherhood is proportionately higher or lower for women at higher points in cognitive skill, wage, and race hierarchies. One animating puzzle is that a paper by Ellwood and colleagues found higher penalties for more cognitively skilled women, while a paper using the same data by Budig and Hodges found higher penalties at lower wage levels; given the correlation between skill and wage, it is surprising if both are true. We use all waves of the NLSY79 with fixed effects models and quantile regression. We assess whether penalties (because of and net of experience) are higher for those scoring higher on the AFQT, for those with lower wages, and for black women. We assess the role of marital status in explaining black/white differences in penalties. We attempt a comprehensive portrait of how motherhood penalties vary by advantage.
Bibliography Citation
England, Paula A., Jonathan M. Bearak, Michelle Jean Budig and Melissa J. Hodges. "Is the Motherhood Wage Penalty Worse at the Top or Bottom?" Presented: San Francisco CA, Population Association of America Meetings, May 2012.
9. Hodges, Melissa J.
All in the Family: A Couples' Approach to Understanding Parental Wage Gaps Within and Across Households
Presented: Chicago IL, American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, August 2015
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: American Sociological Association
Keyword(s): Children; Fatherhood; Gender Differences; Household Composition; Motherhood; Wage Gap

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

Using the 1980- 2008 waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), this paper examines how parenthood exacerbates gender wage inequality within married, heterosexual households and across families by spousal work time arrangements. The majority of research on motherhood penalties and fatherhood premiums investigates how individual men and women's earnings change after the arrival of children, but it remains unclear how parental bonuses and penalties align within couples and vary across households. Although studies investigating child effects on individuals' wages draw on theoretical explanations that rely on the joint decision-making of couples, little work to date directly situates the effects of children on earnings within couples and within the larger context of US earnings inequality. This paper finds that wage inequality associated with family composition not only amplifies the gender wage gap within households, but also contributes to wage inequality among couples based on differences among couples' in terms of work effort. Findings suggest that to address the growth in US wage inequality, it is necessary to consider how within-couple wage gaps associated with children vary across households.
Bibliography Citation
Hodges, Melissa J. "All in the Family: A Couples' Approach to Understanding Parental Wage Gaps Within and Across Households." Presented: Chicago IL, American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, August 2015.
10. Hodges, Melissa J.
Bringing the Household Back in: Family Wage Gaps and the Intersection of Gender, Race, and Class in the Household Context
Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Sociology, University of Massachusetts - Amherst, 2015.
Also: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2/368/
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Department of Sociology, University of Massachusetts - Amherst
Keyword(s): Family Income; Fatherhood; Gender Differences; Maternal Employment; Motherhood; Parenthood; Racial Differences; Socioeconomic Status (SES); Wage Gap; Wage Penalty/Career Penalty

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

Using the 1980- 2008 waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), this dissertation examines how parenthood exacerbates gender wage inequality within married, heterosexual households and across families stratified by race and social class. The majority of research on motherhood penalties and fatherhood premiums investigates how individual men and women's earnings change after the arrival of children, yet it is unclear how parental bonuses and penalties accrue within coupled households. Although studies investigating child effects on individuals' wages draw on theoretical explanations that rely on the joint decision-making of couples, empirical analysis rarely situates the effects of children on earnings within couples. This dissertation reveals that wage inequality associated with parenthood not only amplifies the gender wage gap, but also contributes to wage inequality among couples, net of couples' work effort, educational attainment, income level, and racial/ethnic group membership. Importantly, the degree to which parenthood exacerbates gender wage inequality within the household varies by educational attainment, work hours, and racial/ethnic group of coupled partners.
Bibliography Citation
Hodges, Melissa J. Bringing the Household Back in: Family Wage Gaps and the Intersection of Gender, Race, and Class in the Household Context. Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Sociology, University of Massachusetts - Amherst, 2015..
11. Hodges, Melissa J.
Care and Disadvantage: Investigating the Likelihood of Care Work for Men and Women
Presented: New York NY, American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, August 2013
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: American Sociological Association
Keyword(s): Event History; Gender Differences; Human Capital; Labor Supply; Occupational Choice; Occupations

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

Using discrete-time event history models on pooled 1979-2008 waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, this paper investigates the “risk” of individuals entering and continuing in care work. I consider differences among male and female care and non-care workers, including selection into care work on stable individual characteristics, human capital, and labor supply. The results suggest that likelihood of entering and continuing in care work is a gendered and racialized process. Women and women of color in particular, are more likely to enter and continue in care work over time. Possible explanations include labor market segmentation and perceptions of care work as being more amenable to family responsibilities.
Bibliography Citation
Hodges, Melissa J. "Care and Disadvantage: Investigating the Likelihood of Care Work for Men and Women." Presented: New York NY, American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, August 2013.
12. Hodges, Melissa J.
Intersections on the Class Escalator: Gender, Race, and Occupational Segregation in Paid Care Work
Sociological Forum 35,1 (March 2020): 24-49.
Also: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/socf.12566
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Wiley Online
Keyword(s): Discrimination; Gender Differences; Occupational Choice; Occupational Segregation; Racial Differences

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

As U.S. manufacturing and production industries have declined, the growth of the care sector has increasingly become an important source of jobs for workers without a college degree. Often requiring some form of postsecondary credentialing, many care occupations can provide better wages, job stability, and possible upward mobility for less educated workers. However, employment patterns in paid care work are both gendered and racialized: women and workers of color are overrepresented in care occupations with fewer entry barriers, benefits, and lower pay. Although these patterns are well documented, the mechanisms producing them are less well understood. Using event history analysis and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79), this study evaluates the explanatory power of neoclassical economic, status attainment, and social closure theories of occupational segregation for black women's and men's greater hazard or "risk" of entering care occupations, relative to white workers. Net of individual and closure mechanisms, significant residual effects suggest labor market discrimination remains a primary explanation for the over‐representation of black workers in less credentialed care jobs with fewer benefits.
Bibliography Citation
Hodges, Melissa J. "Intersections on the Class Escalator: Gender, Race, and Occupational Segregation in Paid Care Work." Sociological Forum 35,1 (March 2020): 24-49.
13. Hodges, Melissa J.
The Price of Privilege? Investigating Gendered Child Wage Gaps within Couples By Educational Attainment and Professional/Managerial Status
Presented: Chicago IL, Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM) Annual Fall Research Conference, November 2017
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM)
Keyword(s): Educational Attainment; Gender Differences; Occupational Status; Parenthood; Wage Gap; Wage Penalty/Career Penalty

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

This project uses dyadic multi-level models on the 1980-2012 waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79) to investigate the distribution of child wage effects within married, opposite-sex couples by educational attainment and professional/managerial status. Using couples as the unit of analysis better aligns examination of parental penalties and premiums with existing theories explaining the reproduction of gender inequality within and across households. Results indicate that wage effects associated with family composition not only shape the gender wage gap within households, but also contributes to wage inequality among families based on the differential distribution of child wage effects within families across class. Furthermore, the gender wage gaps associated with children within married couples are amplified among the most privileged families, suggesting that the gender wage inequality found within highly educated, professional/managerial couples can be potentially described as a "price of privilege" paid by couples with more economic resources. Findings suggest that to better address the stalled decline in the gender pay gap as well as wider U.S. wage inequality, it is necessary for researchers and policy makers to consider how within-couple wage gaps associated with children vary across households by social class.
Bibliography Citation
Hodges, Melissa J. "The Price of Privilege? Investigating Gendered Child Wage Gaps within Couples By Educational Attainment and Professional/Managerial Status." Presented: Chicago IL, Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM) Annual Fall Research Conference, November 2017.
14. Hodges, Melissa J.
Budig, Michelle Jean
Who Gets the Daddy Bonus?: Organizational Hegemonic Masculinity and the Impact of Fatherhood on Earnings
Gender and Society 24,6 (December 2010): 717-745.
Also: http://gas.sagepub.com/content/24/6/717.abstract
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Sage Publications
Keyword(s): Benefits, Fringe; Earnings, Husbands; Educational Attainment; Ethnic Studies; Fatherhood; Gender Attitudes/Roles; Gender Differences; Marital Status; Maternal Employment; Wage Differentials

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

Using the 1979-2006 waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, we investigate how the earnings bonus for fatherhood varies by characteristics associated with hegemonic masculinity in the American workplace: heterosexual marital status, professional/managerial status, educational attainment, skill demands of jobs, and race/ethnicity. We find the earnings bonus for fatherhood persists after controlling for an array of differences, including human capital, labor supply, family structure, and wives' employment status. Moreover, consistent with predictions from the theory of hegemonic masculinity within bureaucratic organizations, the fatherhood bonus is significantly larger for men with other markers of workplace hegemonic masculinity. Men who are white, married, in households with a traditional gender division of labor, college graduates, professional/managerial workers and whose jobs emphasize cognitive skills and deemphasize physical strength receive the largest fatherhood earnings bonuses. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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Bibliography Citation
Hodges, Melissa J. and Michelle Jean Budig. "Who Gets the Daddy Bonus?: Organizational Hegemonic Masculinity and the Impact of Fatherhood on Earnings." Gender and Society 24,6 (December 2010): 717-745.
15. Remster, Brianna
Hodges, Melissa J.
Labor Market Double Jeopardy: The Gendered Effect of Incarceration on Wages
Presented: Atlanta GA, American Society of Criminology Annual Meeting, November 2018
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: American Society of Criminology
Keyword(s): Gender Differences; Human Capital; Incarceration/Jail; Wage Penalty/Career Penalty

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

Research finds that incarceration is associated with reduced wages for men, yet it is unknown whether this extends to formerly incarcerated women, despite evidence that women experience the consequences of incarceration differently than men. Analyzing data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79), this study investigates (1) the relative size of the incarceration wage penalty by gender and (2) whether the explanatory mechanisms for the penalty differ for women compared to men. Findings indicate that the net penalty for formerly incarcerated women is roughly double the size of the penalty for formerly incarcerated men. Moreover, there are gender differences in the mechanisms shaping the wage penalty. Although human capital explains the bulk of the penalty for both men and women, women's penalty is in part higher because of their role as primary caregivers. Further, the stigma of incarceration appears more consequential for women's wages than men's. These findings illustrate the need for more research that applies a gendered lens to the consequences of incarceration.
Bibliography Citation
Remster, Brianna and Melissa J. Hodges. "Labor Market Double Jeopardy: The Gendered Effect of Incarceration on Wages." Presented: Atlanta GA, American Society of Criminology Annual Meeting, November 2018.
16. Remster, Brianna
Hodges, Melissa J.
The Gendered Effect of Incarceration on Wages
Presented: Montreal, QC, American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, August 2017
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: American Sociological Association
Keyword(s): Gender Differences; Incarceration/Jail; Wage Penalty/Career Penalty

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

Despite a growing body of research on the consequences of incarceration, most systematic studies are limited to men. This shortcoming persists notwithstanding several theoretical traditions suggesting that women may experience the consequences of incarceration differently than men. A primary example is research on the incarceration wage penalty; studies find that men who have been incarcerated earn less over time than never incarcerated men. Yet women have different amounts of human and social capital and work experience and may face greater stigma post release than men. This study addresses this gap in the literature by assessing (1) whether women experience an incarceration wage penalty and how it compares to men's and (2) whether wage penalty mechanisms differ for women compared to men. Using data uses from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79), we find that women experience a stronger wage penalty for incarceration than men. Moreover, the mechanisms work differently. Consistent with prior work, human capital explains the bulk of the penalty for men, while a larger residual penalty suggests that stigma is more important for women. These results illustrate the need for applying a gendered lens to consequences of incarceration research.
Bibliography Citation
Remster, Brianna and Melissa J. Hodges. "The Gendered Effect of Incarceration on Wages." Presented: Montreal, QC, American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, August 2017.