Cumulative Disadvantage Across the Life Course: Results from a Nationally Representative Sample

• In Event: Revisiting the Critical Role of Childhood Factors in Predicting Later Life Outcomes I

Abstract

It is well known that individuals are differentially exposed to both individual and social risk factors. That is to say the causes of crime and delinquency vary from person-to-person. Research suggests that individual risk factors such as low birthweight, cognitive deficits, and low self-control are prominent individual-level risk factors. Social risk factors include parental unemployment, low social support, and neighborhood characteristics (e.g., social cohesion). Although there is a large body of evidence to support the individual and social risk factor approaches, there is comparatively less research concerning whether individual and social deficits converge to produce a cumulative effect. The current study uses multiple waves of the National Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) to examine both the distinct and cumulative effects of myriad theoretically informed risk factors—both individual and social—on negative life outcomes including antisocial behavior and arrest.

Author

• Michael TenEyck, University of Cincinnati