Objectives

This study examines: (a) whether the association between juvenile delinquency and educational attainment differs by gender, and (b) which factors underlie such gender differences.

Methods

In order to account for the influence of unobservable family-background factors, this study applies sibling fixed-effects models on the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health). As a sensitivity check, I explore whether observed gender differences are robust to different measurements of delinquency and the potential presence of sibling spillover effects.

Results

Nearly half of the association between juvenile delinquency and educational attainment is attributable to unobservable factors related to family background. This study finds that controlling for unobserved family-level heterogeneity substantially attenuates the association between juvenile delinquency and educational attainment among females, making it no longer statistically significant. Among males, sibling fixed-effects estimates suggest that a one-standard-deviation increase in delinquent involvement is associated with a reduction in 0.23 years of schooling and a 4.6 percentage point increase in the probability of high school dropout. Supplementary analyses show that male delinquents face major disadvantages in social relationships in school settings and display lower levels of educational aspirations as well as effort. No such patterns are found among female delinquents.

Conclusions

This study finds a negative association between delinquency and educational attainment only for males but not for females. Results suggest that failure to account for unobserved family-level heterogeneity spuriously inflates the delinquency–education association to a larger extent among females than males.

中文翻译：

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犯罪行为的教育处罚中的性别差异：来自同胞分析的证据

目标

这项研究调查了：（a）青少年犯罪与受教育程度之间的关联是否因性别而异，以及（b）造成这种性别差异的因素是什么。

方法

为了说明无法观察到的家庭背景因素的影响，本研究在全国青少年成人健康纵向研究（增加健康）中采用了同级固定效应模型。作为敏感性检查，我探讨了观察到的性别差异是否对不同的犯罪率和兄弟姐妹溢出效应的潜在存在具有鲁棒性。

结果

青少年犯罪和受教育程度之间的关系中，有近一半是由于与家庭背景有关的不可观察的因素造成的。这项研究发现，控制未观察到的家庭层面的异质性实质上削弱了女性青少年犯罪和受教育程度之间的联系，从而使其在统计上不再重要。在男性中，同等的固定影响估计表明，拖延犯罪的一个标准偏差的增加与0.23年的受教育减少以及高中辍学的可能性增加4.6个百分点有关。补充分析表明，男性犯罪者在学校环境中在社交关系方面面临主要不利因素，并且其教育愿望和努力水平较低。

结论

这项研究发现，犯罪率与受教育程度之间仅对男性有负面影响，而对女性则没有。结果表明，未能解决未观察到的家庭层面异质性，在女性中比在男性中更大程度地夸大了犯罪与教育的联系。