Conviction, gender and labour market status

Applying Propensity Score Matching to the National Child Development Study, we find that conviction reduces the employment probability of middle-aged British females about three times more than comparable males. Moreover, while males recover part of the disadvantage by increasing self-employment, conviction results in a strong labour market marginalization for females, as unemployment and, overall, inactivity increase. Robustness checks tend to confirm these findings. This suggests both a stronger discouragement effect for females and a different attitude toward self-employment or excluding factors (e.g. access to borrowing).