The contribution of age structure to the international homicide decline

Abstract

BackgroundSince 1990, the world’s homicide rate has declined by nearly 20%. While prior research has documented parallel homicide declines across many individual countries, the causes of a shared international homicide decline remain unknown. Drawing on a worldwide process of population ageing, and on research linking age to criminal activity, this study investigates the contribution of global demographic shifts to the international homicide decline.MethodsWe draw from (1) a High Coverage Sample of 126 countries since 1990, and (2) a Long Series Sample of 26 countries since 1960 and utilize fixed-effect regressions to evaluate the impact of age structure on homicide trends. In addition, we use a quantile regression to explore variations in the relationship between age structure and homicide conditional on homicide levels.FindingsResults using the High Coverage Sample suggest no relationship between age structure and homicide. However, results from the Long Series Sample suggest that changes in the relative size of countries’ youth population is a major predictor of homicide trends since 1960. In exploring this divergence, we find that the influence of age structure on homicide becomes less evident as other risk factors for violence gain prominence. Thus, while high homicide countries had the most to gain from falling homicide rates, the safety benefits of an ageing population have been concentrated among the least violent countries.InterpretationWhile the homicide declines of individual countries have often been attributed to domestic policies, the universality of international homicide trends suggests the influence of broader global phenomenon. We find that countries’ homicide trends are strongly associated with changes in the size of their youth populations, particularly where there are few competing criminogenic forces. Based on these results, we propose an explanation for the international homicide decline, while highlighting the importance of demographic patterns in explaining homicide trends.

The Influence of Government Effectiveness and Corruption on the High Levels of Homicide in Latin America

“…Developed countries in other parts of the world have homicide rates that are much lower than those in Latin American countries (Stamatel 2009), meaning that most cross-national homicide studies have included data for countries that feature at the lower end of the global scale of homicide rates. Other cross-national studies of homicide have examined the influence of rapid and disorganized urbanization (Neumayer 2003), population density (Nivette 2011), age structure (Rennó Santos et al 2019), transition to democratic rule (Neumayer 2003;Rivera 2016), cultural masculinity (Neapolitan 1994), and trafficking of firearms and organized crime (Esparza et al 2019;Garzón-Vergara 2016). Although the results from these studies and the many others that have been referred to in this qualitative review have provided some important insights into trends in homicide in Latin America, collectively these studies have often only offered modest explanatory value or have failed to offer consistent explanations for the high levels of homicide across the region.…”

“…High homicide levels also undermine economic and social stability in the region (Bergman 2018) and have significant financial consequences, estimated as being equivalent to six percent of gross domestic product for many countries in the region (World Bank 2019). The homicide problem is also an increasing one: the proportion of homicides across the world that occur in Latin America increased from 29 percent in 2000 to 39 percent in 2017 (Alvarado and Muggah 2018); in recent times, almost all the countries in the region have experienced significant or moderate increases in homicides, and where decreases in homicide have been experienced (e.g., Colombia), these have often been difficult to sustain (Oberwittler 2019;Rennó Santos et al 2019). (We recognize that Chile is an exception, where homicide rates are below the global average, but use Chile as an example in a later section for examining country heterogeneity and for consistency in the relationships we examine.…”

The Essential Role of Cross-national Research in Assessing Theories of Crime: Illustrations from Modern Control Theory

“…8 For general critiques of the fascination in the U.S. to the potential deterrent and incapacitative prospects for the criminal justice system, see Hirschi (2016, 2019) and Tonry (2015). 9 Admittedly, these are large topics and involve a large literature that can only be mentioned here-for general arguments, see, e.g., Eisner (2001Eisner ( , 2014, Farrell et al (2014), Mishra and Lalumière (2009), Santos et al (2019), Tonry (2014), and Gottfredson and Hirschi (2019, Part II).…”

Progress and Obstacles in the Internationalization of Criminology

“…In recent years, WHO and UNODC have joined forces by pooling their data on homicide and other crimes. Both agencies now produce periodic reports and data on homicide as well as other crimes (UNODC 2013(UNODC , 2019WHO 2014) and researchers are increasingly turning to UNODC (Botelho and Gonçalves 2016;Liem and Eisner 2020;Santos et al 2019) and WHO (Chon 2012;Lappi-Seppälä and Lehti 2014) data for their international homicide research.…”