According to Sugarman, while middle-class pupils understood the benefits of deferred gratification (for example the higher earnings that might be available after extended study) working-class pupils are more likely to prefer immediate gratification, that is to get rewards straight away. As such they are more likely to want to leave school at the first opportunity and enter paid employment. This is linked to ideas about cultural deprivation and is presented as an alternative to Marxist, structuralist explanations for why the children of working-class parents tend to go through the education system and enter working-class occupations.