IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jeborg/v241y2026ics016726812500441x.html

Impact of prison experience on anti-gay sentiments: Longitudinal analysis of inmates and their families

Author

Listed:
  • Ananyev, Maxim
  • Poyker, Michael

Abstract

Inmates’ informal code often ascribes low status to persons perceived as passive homosexuals. We use longitudinal data to investigate whether prison experience might contribute to anti-gay beliefs. We find that prison experience is related to a higher level of anti-gay sentiments among males and their families, while no discernible difference exists before incarceration. We find no effect for female ex-prisoners. We confirm that pre-incarceration trends, changes in trust and social capital, income, mental health, masculinity norms, and other potential alternative explanations do not drive the results. Our study sheds light on the overlooked role of prisons as a potential significant contributor to the propagation of anti-gay attitudes.

Suggested Citation

  • Ananyev, Maxim & Poyker, Michael, 2026. "Impact of prison experience on anti-gay sentiments: Longitudinal analysis of inmates and their families," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 241(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:241:y:2026:i:c:s016726812500441x
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2025.107324
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016726812500441X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jebo.2025.107324?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Edoardo Teso, 2019. "The Long-Term Effect of Demographic Shocks on the Evolution of Gender Roles: Evidence from the transatlantic Slave Trade," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 17(2), pages 497-534.
    2. Devah Pager, 2003. "The mark of a criminal record," Natural Field Experiments 00319, The Field Experiments Website.
    3. Jeffrey R. Kling, 2006. "Incarceration Length, Employment, and Earnings," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(3), pages 863-876, June.
    4. Aksoy, Billur & Chadd, Ian & Koh, Boon Han, 2023. "Sexual identity, gender, and anticipated discrimination in prosocial behavior," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    5. Samuel Norris & Matthew Pecenco & Jeffrey Weaver, 2021. "The Effects of Parental and Sibling Incarceration: Evidence from Ohio," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 111(9), pages 2926-2963, September.
    6. Will Dobbie & Hans Grönqvist & Susan Niknami & Mårten Palme & Mikael Priks, 2018. "The Intergenerational Effects of Parental Incarceration," NBER Working Papers 24186, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Sascha O. Becker & Luigi Pascali, 2019. "Religion, Division of Labor, and Conflict: Anti-semitism in Germany over 600 Years," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(5), pages 1764-1804, May.
    8. Aksoy, Cevat G. & Carpenter, Christopher S. & De Haas, Ralph & Tran, Kevin D., 2020. "Do laws shape attitudes? Evidence from same-sex relationship recognition policies in Europe," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    9. Saxby, Karinna & de New, Sonja C. & Petrie, Dennis, 2020. "Structural stigma and sexual orientation disparities in healthcare use: Evidence from Australian Census-linked-administrative data," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 255(C).
    10. Paola Giuliano & Nathan Nunn, 2021. "Understanding Cultural Persistence and Change [Cultural Assimilation During the Age of Mass Migration]," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 88(4), pages 1541-1581.
    11. Brodeur, Abel & Haddad, Joanne, 2021. "Institutions, attitudes and LGBT: Evidence from the gold rush," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 187(C), pages 92-110.
    12. Ananyev, Maxim & Poyker, Mikhail, 2024. "Prison Norms and Society beyond Bars," IZA Discussion Papers 17138, IZA Network @ LISER.
    13. Baranov, Victoria & de Haas, Ralph & Grosjean, Pauline, 2018. "Men. Roots and Consequences of Masculinity Norms," Other publications TiSEM 6fa57f55-71bb-42c4-8cc4-d, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    14. Sansone, Dario, 2019. "Pink work: Same-sex marriage, employment and discrimination," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 180(C).
    15. Alexandre Belloni & Victor Chernozhukov & Christian Hansen, 2014. "High-Dimensional Methods and Inference on Structural and Treatment Effects," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 28(2), pages 29-50, Spring.
    16. Ananyev, Maxim & Poyker, Michael, 2021. "Christian missions and anti-gay attitudes in Africa," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 184(C), pages 359-374.
    17. Aksoy, Cevat Giray & Carpenter, Christopher S. & Frank, Jeff & Huffman, Matt L., 2019. "Gay glass ceilings: Sexual orientation and workplace authority in the UK," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 167-180.
    18. Fernández, Raquel & Parsa, Sahar & Viarengo, Martina, 2019. "Coming Out in America: AIDS, Politics, and Cultural Change," IZA Discussion Papers 12360, IZA Network @ LISER.
    19. Marie-Anne Valfort, 2020. "Over the Rainbow? The Road to LGBTI Inclusion," Post-Print halshs-02922316, HAL.
    20. Randi Hjalmarsson & Matthew J. Lindquist, 2022. "The Health Effects of Prison," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(4), pages 234-270, October.
    21. Will Dobbie & Jacob Goldin & Crystal S. Yang, 2018. "The Effects of Pretrial Detention on Conviction, Future Crime, and Employment: Evidence from Randomly Assigned Judges," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(2), pages 201-240, February.
    22. Amanda Agan & Sonja Starr, 2018. "Ban the Box, Criminal Records, and Racial Discrimination: A Field Experiment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(1), pages 191-235.
    23. Lafferty, Lise & Treloar, Carla & Chambers, Georgina M. & Butler, Tony & Guthrie, Jill, 2016. "Contextualising the social capital of Australian Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal men in prison," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 29-36.
    24. Anna Aizer & Joseph J. Doyle, 2015. "Juvenile Incarceration, Human Capital, and Future Crime: Evidence from Randomly Assigned Judges," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 130(2), pages 759-803.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hjalmarsson, Randi & Machin, Stephen & Pinotti, Paolo, 2024. "Crime and the labor market," Handbook of Labor Economics,, Elsevier.
    2. Ananyev, Maxim & Poyker, Mikhail, 2024. "Impact of Prison Experience on Anti-gay Sentiments: Longitudinal Analysis of Inmates and Their Families," IZA Discussion Papers 17137, IZA Network @ LISER.
    3. Grenet, Julien & Grönqvist, Hans & Niknami, Susan, 2024. "The effects of electronic monitoring on offenders and their families," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 230(C).
    4. Brodeur, Abel & Haddad, Joanne, 2021. "Institutions, attitudes and LGBT: Evidence from the gold rush," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 187(C), pages 92-110.
    5. Sugiyama, Yuri, 2022. "Can Soft Law Improve the Welfare of Sexual Minorities? The Case of Same-sex Partnership Policy in Japan," CEI Working Paper Series 2022-06, Center for Economic Institutions, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    6. Andrew Garin & Dmitri Koustas & Carl McPherson & Samuel Norris & Matthew Pecenco & Evan K. Rose & Yotam Shem‐Tov & Jeffrey Weaver, 2025. "The Impact of Incarceration on Employment, Earnings, and Tax Filing," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 93(2), pages 503-538, March.
    7. Eric Chyn & Brigham Frandsen & Emily Leslie, 2025. "Examiner and Judge Designs in Economics: A Practitioner's Guide," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 63(2), pages 401-439, June.
    8. Bastien Michel & Camille Hémet, 2022. "Custodial versus non-custodial sentences: Long-run evidence from an anticipated reform," Working Papers halshs-03899897, HAL.
    9. Carolina Arteaga, 2021. "Parental Incarceration and Children's Educational Attainment," Working Papers tecipa-703, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    10. Andrew Leigh, 2020. "The Second Convict Age: Explaining the Return of Mass Imprisonment in Australia," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 96(313), pages 187-208, June.
    11. John J. Donohue & Peter Siegelman, 2024. "Allocating Resources Among Prisons and Preschool: An Analysis of the New Evidence," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 714(1), pages 114-133, July.
    12. Steeve Marchand & Guy Lacroix & William Arbour, 2023. "Prison rehabilitation programs and recidivism: evidence from variations in availability," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2023n07, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne.
    13. Agan, Amanda & Doleac, Jennifer & Harvey, Anna, 2021. "Misdemeanor Prosecution," IZA Discussion Papers 14234, IZA Network @ LISER.
    14. Johannes W. Ligtenberg & Tiemen Woutersen, 2024. "Multidimensional clustering in judge designs," Papers 2406.09473, arXiv.org.
    15. Jon Kleinberg & Himabindu Lakkaraju & Jure Leskovec & Jens Ludwig & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2018. "Human Decisions and Machine Predictions," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(1), pages 237-293.
    16. Amanda Agan & Matthew Freedman & Emily Owens, 2021. "Is Your Lawyer a Lemon? Incentives and Selection in the Public Provision of Criminal Defense," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 103(2), pages 294-309, May.
    17. Gulesci, Selim & Lombardi, María & Ramos, Alejandra, 2024. "Telenovelas and attitudes toward the LGBTQ+ community in Latin America," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    18. Nicolás Grau & Gonzalo Marivil & Jorge Rivera, 2023. "The Effect of Pretrial Detention on Labor Market Outcomes," Journal of Quantitative Criminology, Springer, vol. 39(2), pages 283-332, June.
    19. Bhuller, Manudeep & Khoury, Laura & Løken, Katrine V., 2021. "Prison, Mental Health and Family Spillovers," Discussion Paper Series in Economics 19/2021, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Economics.
    20. Bhuller, Manudeep & Sigstad, Henrik, 2022. "Errors and monotonicity in judicial decision-making," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 215(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • M14 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - Corporate Culture; Diversity; Social Responsibility
    • H76 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Other Expenditure Categories
    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
    • P00 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - General - - - General
    • R29 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Other
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:241:y:2026:i:c:s016726812500441x. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jebo .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.