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Title: Divergence in the "Good Marriage Effect": Findings and Processes of an NIJ W.E.B. Du Bois Fellowship
Resulting in 1 citation.
1. Bersani, Bianca Elizabeth
DiPietro, Stephanie
Divergence in the "Good Marriage Effect": Findings and Processes of an NIJ W.E.B. Du Bois Fellowship
Presented: Atlanta GA, American Society of Criminology Annual Meeting, November 2013
Cohort(s): NLSY97
Publisher: American Society of Criminology
Keyword(s): Crime; Immigrants; Life Course; Marriage

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

The aim of this presentation is to provide practical guidance on the application process, to share our experiences as Du Bois Fellows and to summarize the findings of our research, which synthesizes life course and immigration literature to examine whether and to what extent immigration status conditions the relationship between marriage and offending. While criminological interest in the impact of salient life events on offending over the life course has garnered much empirical attention over the last few decades, this work has evolved with limited recognition of potential cultural contingencies. Specifically, despite growing evidence that marriage holds the potential to alter offending trajectories, both theoretical development and empirical analysis have been largely andro- and ethnocentric in their portrayal of marriage effects. We examine the marriage-crime nexus among immigrants, paying attention to important generational, nativity, and migration factors that may complicate this relationship. To study these questions, we use data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and apply hierarchical linear modeling to examine within-individual longitudinal patterns of offending among immigrants and non-immigrants. While our results lend credence to the universally beneficial effect of being married, we find notable points of divergence when immigrant generation and gender intersect.
Bibliography Citation
Bersani, Bianca Elizabeth and Stephanie DiPietro. "Divergence in the "Good Marriage Effect": Findings and Processes of an NIJ W.E.B. Du Bois Fellowship." Presented: Atlanta GA, American Society of Criminology Annual Meeting, November 2013.