The Influence of Family Socioeconomic Status on the Post–High School Outcomes of Youth With Disabilities

Abstract

Using data from the National Longitudinal Transition Study–2, this study considers (a) the extent to which the socioeconomic status (SES) of youth with disabilities predicted their likelihood of high school graduation, postsecondary education enrollment, and employment; (b) the extent to which other individual and family factors mediated the SES–outcome relationships; and (c) other factors that significantly explained outcome variations for youth with disabilities. Results show that SES had a statistically significant but relatively small effect on outcomes, to a sizable extent the effect of SES was mediated by other factors, and many of the covariates in the analyses (e.g., disability type and severity, gender, race/ethnicity) had their own significant relationships with outcomes that contribute to our understanding of variations in them.