Externalizing Behavior in the Life Course

Abstract

This paper uses data from the National Child Development Study to study the long-term experiences of boys who display externalizing behavior problems. Analyses examine the transition from school to work by bringing together variables used in life-course analyses of the transition to adulthood (e.g., family background, individual ability, aspirations, school placements) with variables often employed in longitudinal studies of children with behavior problems (e.g., behavior problems, family difficulties, special educational services). A substantial amount of variance is accounted for by variables that are conventionally employed in life-course analyses. However, academic ability, parental aspirations, and private/grammar school placement have significantly smaller effects on some outcomes for boys who display externalizing behavior than for boys who do not display such behavior. The discussion emphasizes the importance of including both sets of factors when explaining the life-course experiences of boys who displayed externalizing behaviors.

The Labor Market Consequences of Childhood Maladjustment*

“…For example, Gregg and Machin (1997) simply selected eight of the syndromes from the age 7 BSAG and, for each child, summed the number for which positive scores were recorded. Farmer (1993) assigned a value of 1 to any child whose score from either a teacher or a parent fell into the top 10 percent at age 7, 11, or 16 (about one‐third of her sample) and a value of 0 to all other children 10…”

“…A large body of research has now accumulated that uses longitudinal surveys to track individuals from childhood (sometimes from birth) until adulthood. Most of this research focuses on various intergenerational effects (see, e.g., Chase‐Lansdale, Cherlin, and Kiernan, 1995; Currie and Hyson, 1999; Farmer, 1993, 1995; Gregg and Machin, 1997; Yabiku, Axinn, and Thornton, 1999; Caspi et al, 1998; Miech et al, 1999). The cumulative evidence from these studies suggests that intergenerational effects are important.…”

“…A number of previous studies have used panel data for purposes similar to our own (see, e.g., Farmer, 1993, 1995; Gregg and Machin, 1997; Caspi et al, 1998; Johnson et al, 1999; Miech et al, 1999; Ritsher et al, 2001). We expand on previous work in the following ways.…”

“…Third, we examine males and females separately, whereas most, but not all (e.g., Miech et al, 1999), previous studies have examined only males or combined samples of males and females. Fourth, while some of the previous studies compare adult outcomes for individuals who exceeded some high threshold level of maladjustment as children with adult outcomes for persons who were below the threshold as children (e.g., Farmer, 1993), we use a continuous measure of childhood behavioral problems (tests indicated that threshold effects are not present in our data). This allows us to see if children who have moderate behavioral problems also exhibit problems as adults.…”

The Economic Value of Breaking Bad Misbehavior, Schooling and the Labor Market

“…In particular, we can show that securing our key results -including the finding that externalizing behavior has mixed effects on schooling and earnings -does not require a more sophisticated measurement system, but emerges once we control for measures of internalizing behavior and cognition as they have been constructed in earlier work. Earlier work includes research using the NCDS dataset studying externalizing and internalizing behaviors (Farmer, 1993(Farmer, , 1995Jackson, 2006). It also includes research using different samples since the division of misbehavior into these two socio-emotional skills extends to other datasets, including the CNLSY and the PSID (Yeung, Linver, and Brooks-Gunn, 2002;Agan, 2011).…”