AbstractsSociology

How can General Strain Theory (GST) explain why more males than females commit crime (the sex gap) as well as male and female criminality? I propose that gender identity conditions the relationship between the motivation to crime (strain) and delinquency. I argue that feminine gender identities constrain individuals from most delinquent behaviors, while masculine gender identities may actually propel individuals towards delinquency. Variation in the salience of gender identities explains within-gender identity group variance in delinquency. I analyze the conditioning effect of gender identity in GST in a national U.S. probability sample of 1269 adolescents and their mothers interviewed in 1981. The conditioning effect of gender identity is generally supported for males, but the hypothesized dampening effect of femininity is only weakly supported among females. The results suggest that gender identity is potentially an important conditioning mechanism in GST contributing to the sex and gender disparities in delinquency.