Journal
JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR & ORGANIZATION
Volume 191, Issue -, Pages 519-537Publisher
ELSEVIER
DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2021.09.017
Keywords
Violent crime; Property crime; Social disorganization theory; History of crime
Categories
Funding
- Australian Research Council [DP15010 0 061, DP170100339]
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This study examines the influence of family and community structures on crime over the past two centuries and the interaction between them. The findings suggest that changes in family and community structures play a significant role in the evolution of crime rates.
According to social disorganization theory, a well-developed family and community struc-ture is a pre-condition for low crime rates. Using annual data for 16 advanced countries constructed for two centuries, this paper examines the extent to which the changing fam-ily and community structures over the past two centuries have influenced the evolution of crime. Furthermore, we test whether a weakened family structure has a stronger ef-fect on crime in communities with weak social networks by allowing for the interaction between urbanization (community network) and divorce rates (family network). Broadly, we find that changes in family and community structures and their interaction have been influential for the evolution of crime rates since 1810. (c) 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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