Finding and keeping a job is one of the key challenges individuals face as they move back into society. Research suggests that former inmates access mostly jobs on the margins of the labor market, however there is limited research on the dynamics of post-prison employment that account for differences in types of jobs. Using data from the study “Reintegration, desistance and recidivism among female inmates in Chile” (RDFC), our paper describes patterns of employment among a cohort of 207 women released from prison in Santiago, Chile and followed during the first year after release. We use sequence analysis to describe monthly patterns of employment considering different types of work (i.e., self-employed / employed, legitimate / under-the-table). To better account for the complex relationship between work and crime, we include offending as another type of income-generating activity. Finally, we use cluster analysis to explore which individual characteristics are associated with the distinct patterns of employment and offending. Our results show a significant level of heterogeneity in employment trajectories by job type, and the importance of considering work and offending to obtain a more complete picture of the dynamics of employment during reentry.
JGSS
Early Exposure to County Income Mobility and Adult Individual Health in the United States
Despite substantial research, drivers of the widening gap in life expectancy between rich and poor in the U.S. – the so-called longevity gap – remain unknown. Recent research has suggested that contextual income mobility (e.g., county-level socioeconomic mobility) may play an essential role in explaining the longevity gap. Previous studies – based mostly on aggregate and cross-sectional individual data – show an association between county income mobility and county mortality and individual’s health. However, inferring individual effects from aggregate (county-level) data can be problematic (i.e., ecological fallacy), and measuring exposure to income mobility using the county where respondents currently live or die, might overlook the selection process associated with residential mobility. This paper aims to extend previous research by estimating the effect of average exposure to mobility regimes during childhood and adolescence on adult health using longitudinal data and accounting for selection into counties over time (i.e., residential mobility). We use both the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97) and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) with geocoded data to assess the link between county-level income mobility (Chetty’s estimates), behaviors (smoking) and health conditions and status (self-reported health, BMI, depressive symptoms). Furthermore, we use cohorts optimally match Chetty’s estimates of income mobility in the U.S. (1980-1982) and account for selection and time-varying confounders using marginal structural models (MSM). Overall, we provide a more precise test of the hypothesis that childhood exposure to income mobility regimes may determine health status through behavior (i.e., smoking) later in life and contribute to longevity gaps.
Demography
The Consequences of Incarceration for Mortality in the United States
Sebastian Daza, Alberto Palloni, and 1 more author
Previous research suggests that incarceration has negative implications for individuals’ well-being, health, and mortality. Most of these studies, though, do not follow former prisoners over extended periods of time and into older adult ages when it is more likely that cumulative consequences of incarceration will be felt. This paper contributes to this literature by employing for the first time the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) to estimate the long run association between individual incarceration and mortality over nearly 40 years, and supplementing those analyses with the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79). We then use these estimates to investigate the implications of the US incarceration regime and the post-1980 incarceration boom for the US health and mortality disadvantage relative to industrialized peer countries (the United Kingdom).
ICJSD
Who Is Transitioning out of Prison? Characterising Female Offenders and Their Needs in Chile
The last decades’ increase in female incarceration has translated into an increasing number of women being released from prison. Understanding their characteristics and criminal trajectories can enlighten us regarding the different needs of women upon re-entering society after incarceration. Drawing on data from the Reinserción, Desistimiento y Reincidencia en Mujeres Privadas de Libertad en Chile study, this article identifies different profiles among a cohort of 225 women who were released from prison in Santiago, Chile, and demonstrates that significant heterogeneity exists among them in terms of their criminal trajectories and the intervention needs to support their transition out of prison.
JAMA Int Med
Association of Social Mobility with the Income-Based Longevity Gap in the United States. A Cross-Sectional, County-Level Study
Background: Despite substantial research, the causes of the widening gap in life expectancy between rich and poor Americans—the longevity gap— remain unknown. We hypothesized that social mobility may play an important role in explaining the longevity gap. Methods: We estimated the association between social mobility - here operationalized as the correlation between parent and child income - and life expectancy at age 40 among U.S. men and women in different income quartiles using newly available county-level data, adjusting for a range of economic, social, and demographic characteristics. We used these estimates to predict the longevity gap between the top and bottom income quartiles if all counties had the same social mobility as the best performing county. Results: In our sample of 1,559 counties (representing 93% of the U.S. population), each increase of 1 standard deviation in the social mobility measure was associated with a 0.38 (95% CI: 0.29, 0.47) and 0.29 year (95% CI: 0.21, 0.38) increase in life expectancy among bottom income quartile men and women, respectively. Estimates for the top income quartile were smaller, and not robust to covariate adjustment. If all counties had the highest level of social mobility, the predicted longevity gap between the lowest and highest income quartiles would be smaller by 1.4 years for men (95% CI: 0.7, 2.1) and 1.1 years (95% CI: 0.5,1.6) for women, representing a 20% decrease. Conclusion: Social mobility may explain an important portion of incomerelated life expectancy gaps in the United States.
SMR
Agent-Based Models for Assessing Complex Statistical Models: An Example Evaluating Selection and Social Influence Estimates from SIENA
Although agent-based models (ABMs) have been increasingly accepted in social sciences as a valid tool to formalize theory, propose mechanisms able to recreate regularities, and guide empirical research, we are not aware of any research using ABMs to assess the robustness of our statistical methods. We argue that ABMs can be extremely helpful to assess models when the phenomena under study are complex. As an example, we create an ABM to evaluate the estimation of selection and influence effects by SIENA, a stochastic actor-oriented model proposed by Tom A. B. Snijders and colleagues. It is a prominent network analysis method that has gained popularity during the last 10 years and been applied to estimate selection and influence for a broad range of behaviors and traits such as substance use, delinquency, violence, health, and educational attainment. However, we know little about the conditions for which this method is reliable or the particular biases it might have. The results from our analysis show that selection and influence are estimated by SIENA asymmetrically and that, with very simple assumptions, we can generate data where selection estimates are highly sensitive to misspecification, suggesting caution when interpreting SIENA analyses.
working papers
Distinguishing between Interaction and Dispersion Effects in GxE Analysis: A Review of Strategies
The study of GxE is messy. Multiple and challenging obstacles must be overcome to reach a clean estimate, including confounding, selection, insufficient statistical power, model misspecification, measurement error, and difficulties in discriminating between quantitative and qualitative changes when using polygenic scores. In this paper, we focus on one specific challenge: the importance of distinguishing between interaction and dispersion effects in any analysis of gene-environment interactions. We first argue that a critical decision that researchers must make is choosing between indicators of genetic penetrance, slopes of G, or variance decomposition, h2 or correlation. Sec- ond, we use simulation to assess alternative methods to identify discrepancies between slopes and dispersion effects when studying GxE. Based on our results, we suggest a strategy that requires a precise definition of the research question regarding GxE, a strong theoretical justification of the model that specifies GxE, and the full use of simple visualizations and Bayesian distributional models to evaluate variations patterns in slopes and phenotypical variance.
Consequences of Heritability, Assortative Mating and Fertility Differentials for the Obesity Pandemic
Sebastian Daza, Alberto Palloni, and 2 more authors
Although genetic heritability, the environment shared by family members (sociocultural heritability), assortative mating, and fertility differentials by body mass index (BMI) have been proposed as relevant factors that could sustain the obesity pandemic, their theoretical and empirical impact remain unclear. This paper proposes a formal model to assess how robust and significant are the influences of these factors at the population level. We explore under which conditions assortative mating and fertility differentials can significantly impact obesity trends and, as a result, relevant demographic outcomes such as the prevalence of type 2 diabetes (T2B), cardiovascular disease (CVD) and mortality. Using parameters based on empirical studies (e.g., BMI assortative mating and fertility differentials) and theoretical scenarios (random mating, entirely endogenous mating), we provide a range of estimates of the potential effect of heritability, mating, and fertility, on time trends of obesity prevalence at the population level.
Exploring the Link between Place’s Income Mobility and Mortality Using an Agent-Based Model
Some scholars have recently suggested that contextual income mobility –- defined as individuals’ ability to exceed their parents’ income within the place of residence — may play an essential role in explaining health disparities in the U.S. Previous research provides some evidence for the link between the rigidity of the stratification system and health. This paper proposes an agent-based model to formalize, explore, and describe the dynamic between a place’s income mobility and health. By combining empirical information and using an exploratory model, we first assess the population-level consequences of changes in income mobility effects and regime for health (life expectancy). We then examine under which residential mobility conditions, and data collection and modeling strategies we can retrieve the effect of income mobility on mortality.
books & conferences
Early Childhood Origins of Modern Social Class Health Disparities
Alberto Palloni, Daniel Ramirez, and 1 more author
In: Handbook of Health Inequalities Across the Life Course 2023
We assess the magnitude of the association between intergenerational income mobility and US adult mortality by gender, age group, race/ethnicity and the causes of death. We use a data set from The Health Inequality Project and CDC mortality data at the county level. We find that under different model specifications the association between income mobility and adult mortality is strong, properly signed, and consistent with our hypotheses. If the association we find reflects a causal effect it would translate into shifts in life expectancy at age 40 of as much as 2.0-4.8 years among males and 0.1-2.0 among females, equivalent to 5.1-12.5 and 0.2-4.7 percent of the U.S. male and female life expectancy at age 40 respectively. On average, these effects are 1.5 to 2.5 times as large as those of income inequality and represent between 40 (males) and 25 (females) percent of the magnitude of an income shift from the lowest to the highest quartile of the U.S. income distribution.
Consequences of Childbearing in Delinquency and Substance Use
Sebastian Daza, and Jason Fletcher
Presented in Population Association of America (PAA) 2016
This paper uses the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) and recent empirical strategies to examine the dynamic consequences of parenthood on delinquency and substance use. We take advantage of the miscarriage information available to form comparison groups. Our contribution is to extend the analysis of the effects of childbearing to deviant outcomes such as delinquency and substance use, and explore the differences between motherhood and fatherhood. Our preliminary results suggest reductions in risky behaviors from childbearing. We do not find evidence of heterogeneity across socioeconomic status.
ISUC
The Impact of Age, Egotropic Vote, and Political Divisions in the 2009-2010 Chilean Election
Through a telephone survey, nationally representative of the Chilean adult population, we study the determinants of electoral choice in the first round of the 2009-2010 national election – which granted power to the political right (Alianza por Chile coalition) after two decades of dominance of center-left governments (Concertación por la Democracia coalition). Age differences and the egotropic vote explain the two main “leaks” of votes suffered by the Concertación candidate Eduardo Frei towards his contenders. Younger voters leaned towards the independent leftist candidate Marco Enríquez Ominami, and economically unsatisfied voters did so towards the rightist candidate Sebastián Piñera. We also show that the vote in the 1988 plebiscite still shapes the vote in 2009-2010, but more strongly among the upper classes than among the lower classes. We suggest this results from the stronger involvement of the former in the political conflict around the military regime.
Intergenerational Transfers in the U.S., Economic Inequality, and Social Stratification
Alberto Palloni, and Sebastian Daza
Presented in Population Association of America (PAA) 2014
Only a handful of studies examine intergenerational transfer patterns over long stretches of time to determine how they change with family dynamic, the experience of personal events (changes in employment, health, deaths), and external shocks, mostly associated with the business cycle. This paper contributes to the literature on intergenerational transfers in three ways. First, we estimate the existence, direction and size of transfer patterns of money and time of elderly individuals in the US over a period of nearly 18 years (1992-2010). Second, we gather empirical evidence to identify the effects of the great 2008 recession on the direction and magnitude of transfers. Third, we estimate differentials in transfers across three ethnic groups, Non Hispanic Whites, African Americans and other ethnic groups (mostly Hispanic White). We formulate alternative models to falsify competing conjectures regarding the nature of transfers and use 10 waves of the Health and Retirement Study to test these models. We focus on parent-child dyads as units of observations and account for withinhousehold interdyad dependency of transfers as well as for reciprocal influence of transfers from parents to children (PtC), and children to parents (CtP). Our results confirm findings from previous research indicating that PtC transfers exceed CtP transfers and that the bulk of CtP transfers adopt the form of supply of time for caregiving. We discuss evidence of a modest but tangible effect of the 2008 recession as it led to a drop of PtC monetary transfers and modest increases in the time children spent caring for parents. We find a sharp ethnic divide in transfer regimes: PtC transfers are more prevalent among Non Hispanic Whites whereas CtP transfers and coresidence are dominant among African Americans and other ethnic groups. Finally, the effects of the 2008 recession are quite similar across ethnic groups.
technical reports
Reinserción, Desistimiento y Reincidencia En Mujeres Privadas de Libertad En Chile