Poverty, Delinquency, and Educational Attainment: Cumulative Disadvantage or Disadvantage Saturation?

Abstract

Data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) were analyzed to test two competing hypotheses regarding how poverty affects the relationship between delinquency and educational attainment. The cumulative‐disadvantage perspective argues that poor youth suffer greater consequences for their involvement in delinquency than middle‐ and upper‐class youth in terms of their educational attainment. Contrary to this perspective, the disadvantage‐saturation thesis predicts that delinquency is less con‐sequential for the educational attainment of poor youth than it is for nonpoor youth. Results from ordinary least squares and logistic regression analyses support the latter hypothesis. Theoretical and policy implications are discussed.

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