Gender differences in the relationship between early conduct problems and later criminality and substance abuse

Abstract This paper develops a multiple group structural equation modelling approach for examining gender differences in developmental data. The approach is applied to data on the continuities between early conduct problems and later offending and substance use behaviour in an unselected birth cohort of 1265 New Zealand children studied to the age of 16. The principal conclusions of this analysis are that the model structures linking early conduct problems to later outcomes were similar for males and females, but that there were gender specific differences in test means, test variances and some regression parameters. The analysis supports the view that common theories may be applied to both males and females, but suggests that these theories need to be sufficiently flexible to permit some model parameters to vary with gender. Copyright © 1999 Whurr Publishers Ltd.