Crime, Families and the Economy: Micro-conditions as Moderator of Macro-effects

Author:

van de Werve IlkaORCID,Blokland ArjanORCID,Weerman FrankORCID

Abstract

AbstractSince the early 1990s, increasing attention is being paid to the impact of life course transitions on criminal behavior. However, individuals’ life courses do not evolve in a vacuum but rather in the broad context of societal characteristics and developments. In this paper, we analyze whether there is an effect of macroeconomic circumstances on individuals’ criminal careers and whether this effect is conditional on marital status and parenthood. We employ micro-level data from a Dutch large-scale longitudinal study and enrich these with macro-level data. Using logistic panel data models for criminal behavior, we distinguish three types of effects: the macro-effect of experiencing declining economic times, the micro-effect of family composition and the interaction effect, indicating whether the effect of economic decline is differentiated by marital status and parenthood. We quantify economic decline either as an increase in the unemployment rate (objective and backward-looking measure) or as a decrease in consumer confidence (subjective and forward-looking). First, we find that an increase in the unemployment rate has no effect on criminal careers, but a decrease in the consumer confidence is associated with an increase in individual-level crime. Next, we confirm earlier results that marriage has a negative effect on crime, while parenthood has no effect. Finally, our results indicate that the detrimental effect of decreasing consumer confidence on criminal behavior is nullified for married individuals.

Publisher

Springer Science and Business Media LLC

Subject

Life-span and Life-course Studies,Law,Applied Psychology

Cited by 1 articles. 订阅此论文施引文献 订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献

同舟云学术

1.学者识别学者识别

2.学术分析学术分析

3.人才评估人才评估

"同舟云学术"是以全球学者为主线,采集、加工和组织学术论文而形成的新型学术文献查询和分析系统,可以对全球学者进行文献检索和人才价值评估。用户可以通过关注某些学科领域的顶尖人物而持续追踪该领域的学科进展和研究前沿。经过近期的数据扩容,当前同舟云学术共收录了国内外主流学术期刊6万余种,收集的期刊论文及会议论文总量共计约1.5亿篇,并以每天添加12000余篇中外论文的速度递增。我们也可以为用户提供个性化、定制化的学者数据。欢迎来电咨询!咨询电话:010-8811{复制后删除}0370

www.globalauthorid.com

TOP

Copyright © 2019-2024 北京同舟云网络信息技术有限公司
京公网安备11010802033243号  京ICP备18003416号-3