School absences, deprivation, and crime involvement – or the egg, the farmer, and the chicken
Categories: Research using linked data, Blogs, Datasets, ADR UK Research Fellows, ADR England, Office for National Statistics, Children & young people, Crime & justice, Health & wellbeing, Inequality & social inclusion
27 February 2025
In this blog, Dr David Buil-Gil, ADR UK Research Fellow and Senior Lecturer at The University of Manchester, explains how he plans to use the Ministry of Justice & Department for Education linked dataset to understand the complexities of the association between school absences, deprivation, and crime involvement.
Which came first?
Egg or chicken? Which came first?
Beyond the philosophical and logical puzzle, this question can also be explored through a scientific lens – specifically, a field called “causal inference”, which examines whether and how one thing causes another.
The question ‘which came first?’ reflects the seemingly cyclical nature of cause and effect: an egg is needed to produce a chicken, yet a chicken is needed to lay an egg. However, evolutionary biologists have long known that the egg came first. Today’s chicken evolved from genetic mutations in the embryo of an earlier bird species – inside the egg.
Simply put, from a causal standpoint, the egg came before the chicken.
What causes what?
The causal inference framework is applied daily to a wide range of research questions in the social sciences and beyond. Does poverty cause a lack of education, or does a lack of education perpetuate poverty? Do mental health disorders lead to substance abuse, or is it substance abuse that causes mental health issues? Does inequality fuel political instability, or does political instability cause inequality?
Causal relationships are often not as simple as one variable causing the other. Sometimes, two variables influence each other in a complex, back-and-forth way. So, in the case of my ADR Fellowship project, I’ll use the Ministry of Justice & Department for Education linked dataset to address the question ‘Do school absences lead to crime involvement, or it is crime involvement that exacerbates school absences?’
I’ll investigate the short-, medium-, and long-term effects of school absences on crime involvement, while also considering the possibility of reverse causality—where crime involvement and associated criminal justice responses may further fuel absenteeism.
The moderating farmer
One could further complicate the chicken-and-egg puzzle by introducing a third element: the farmer.
A farmer might decide to eat the egg, thereby preventing the chicken from existing. Or they may eat the chicken, eliminating the possibility of future eggs. A hungry farmer may eat the egg, while a well-fed one may not. In this way, the farmer “moderates” the causal link between the egg and the chicken (or, if you are a chicken-came-first person, the link between the chicken and the egg). Moderation occurs when the relationship between two variables depends on a third variable. Understanding the role of the moderating farmer is key to getting a well-rounded picture of the causal links between eggs and chickens.
The same idea applies to many social research questions. Lower-performing schools in areas with higher poverty rates may exacerbate the links between poverty and lack of education, while higher-performing schools may break them. Strong family or community support can buffer the negative effects of mental health disorders on substance abuse. And strong democratic institutions may mitigate the impact of inequality on political instability.
In this study, I’ll further consider the moderating role of community-level conditions - including area deprivation - on the causal links between school absences and crime involvement. The research will uncover whether these links differ across population groups.
So what?
My project will explore whether any identified effects linking school absenteeism and crime are moderated by the individual circumstances of each person, including the area where they live.
This information could be crucial – not only for developing explanations of crime across life stages but, more importantly, for mitigating the long-term negative impacts of school absenteeism on different population groups, including traditionally marginalised communities. Understanding the links between school absenteeism and crime could lead to better-targeted policies that prevent young people from falling into cycles of disadvantage.
