49 research outputs found
The Impact of Income and Family Structure on Delinquency
There is no more important issue in the economics of the family than the impact of parents on the behavior of their children. By providing rewards and imposing constraints, parents seek to affect their children’s behavior. The explanation of these actions is that the child’s conduct directly enters into the parent’s utility function. In this paper, we use that framework to explore the role of parental control over his or her child’s delinquent behavior. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, we estimate the impact of family income and various dimensions of family structure on a youth’s contact with the criminal justice system between the ages of 14 and 22. From this analysis, we conclude that the single most important factor affecting these measures of delinquency is the presence of his father in the home. All other factors, including family income, are much less important.family structure; delinquency; role of fathers; role of mothers
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The Impact of Income and Family Structure on Delinquency
Over in the meadow by the old Scotch pine Lives an old mother duck and her little ducklings nine. "Paddle!" said the mother. "We paddle!" said the nine. So they paddled all day by the old Scotch pine.1 [In nature there is] continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.2 A society of Sperm Fathers is a society of 14-year-old girls with babies and 14-year-old boys with guns.3 Together, these three quotations suggest a critical hypothesis as to the effect of family structure on the behavior of boys and girls. The first quotation is a contemporary verse for children and frequently is applied to a large number of animal species. To the extent that it captures an essential truth about the animal kingdom, it is that family structures are largely composed of a mother and her children, while the biological father is nowhere to be seen. While there are surely exceptions to this rule, that characterization is a common one