Labor Markets, Delinquency, and Social Control Theory: An Empirical Assessment of the Mediating Process

• NCJ Number: 182271
• Journal: Social Forces Volume: 78 Issue: 3 Dated: March 2000 Pages: 1041-1066
• Date Published: March 2000
• Author(s): Tim Wadsworth
• Length: 26 pages
• Grant Number(s): 2000-IJ-CX-0022
• Agencies: NIJ-Sponsored
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)

Annotation

Using data from the National Survey of Families and Households, this research examined whether parents' job characteristics, indicative of the primary-sector and secondary-sector labor market division, influence children's bonds to conformity and resulting levels of delinquency.

Abstract

The emerging labor market stratification and crime perspective has drawn on dual labor market theory and social-control theory to examine the influence of labor market stratification and resulting job characteristics on criminal behavior. With empirical studies finding consistent support for this relationship, it has been suggested that parents' work experience may also influence their children's law-violating behavior. In the current study, endogenous variables (attachment to parents, commitment to school, efficacy, and involvement in conforming activities) and the relationship of these variables to the dependent variable (delinquency) and the exogenous labor market stratification variables were analyzed. The study focused on employment stability as one of the indicators of parental labor market position. The effects of parental pay schedules was considered by examining the influence of salaries and other types of remuneration arrangements versus hourly wages on the strength of the children's bonds. The concept of efficacy was used to represent a child's perception that he/she has control over the events and outcomes that occur in his/her life. Grade-point average was indicative of commitment to school. To decrease the possibility that some of the relationships might be spurious, age, gender, race, and parents' education were included in the regression equations. The findings suggest that parents' job characteristics have significant effects on levels of parental supervision, children's feelings of attachment and efficacy, as well as educational aspirations and grade-point averages, all of which directly or indirectly affect levels of delinquency. 2 tables, 3 figures, 11 notes, and 47 references