IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/recsxx/v5y2002i2p209-232.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Impact of Income and Family Structure on Delinquency

Author

Listed:
  • William S. Comanor
  • Llad Phillips

Abstract

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.

Suggested Citation

  • William S. Comanor & Llad Phillips, 2002. "The Impact of Income and Family Structure on Delinquency," Journal of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(2), pages 209-232, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:recsxx:v:5:y:2002:i:2:p:209-232
    DOI: 10.1080/15140326.2002.12040577
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/15140326.2002.12040577
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/15140326.2002.12040577?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 search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Samara R. Gunter, 2018. "Child support wage withholding and father–child contact: parental bargaining and salience effects," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 16(2), pages 427-452, June.
    2. Ovidiu Chiroban & Danuta Stetco & Claudia Ola & Dan Perju-Dumbrava, 2017. "Particular Aspects Of Juvenile Delinquency In The County Of Cluj," FIAT IUSTITIA, Dimitrie Cantemir Faculty of Law Cluj Napoca, Romania, vol. 11(1), pages 65-70, June.
    3. Santos, Mateus Rennó & Caetano, Lucas & Caminhas, Diogo & Jaynes, Chae M., 2023. "The protective role of caretakers in the delinquency of detained youth in São Paulo, Brazil," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    4. Rafael Isidro Parra-Peña Somoza, 2019. "Three essays on conflict and climate effects in Colombia," Economics PhD Theses 0419, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.
    5. Corman, Hope & Dave, Dhaval & Kalil, Ariel & Reichman, Nancy E., 2017. "Effects of maternal work incentives on youth crime," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 128-144.
    6. Corman, Hope & Dave, Dhaval & Kalil, Ariel & Reichman, Nancy E., 2018. "Reprint of: Effects of maternal work incentives on youth crime," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 193-209.
    7. Sandro de Freitas Ferreira & Suzana Quinet de Andrade Bastos & Admir Antonio Betarelli Junior, 2019. "The role of social control in Brazilian homicide rates," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 53(6), pages 2695-2717, November.
    8. Stephen T. Mennemeyer & Bisakha Sen, 2006. "Undesirable Juvenile Behavior and the Quality of Parental Relationships," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 73(2), pages 437-460, October.
    9. Matsushita, Raul & Baldo, Dinorá & Martin, Bruna & Da Silva, Sergio, 2007. "The biological basis of expected utility anomalies," MPRA Paper 4520, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Uche Eseosa Ekhator-Mobayode & Seyedsoroosh Azizi, 2019. "Does the Presence of Neighborhood Gang Affect Youth Criminal Behavior?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 39(3), pages 2102-2109.
    11. Nicolò Barbieri & Ugo Rizzo, 2023. "The impact of crime on firm entry," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 63(2), pages 446-469, March.
    12. Awaworyi Churchill, Sefa & Smyth, Russell & Trinh, Trong-Anh & Yew, Siew Ling, 2022. "Local crime and fertility," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 312-331.

    More about this item

    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:taf:recsxx:v:5:y:2002:i:2:p:209-232. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/recs .

    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.